Informed Choices and Uniform Decisions: Adopting the ABA's Self-Enforcing Administrative Model to Ensure Successful Surrogacy Arrangements

Authors

Christine Metteer Lorillard, Southwestern Law School

Abstract

Non-traditional families are on the rise in America today, with more and more same-sex couples raising families together. Yet, all same-sex partners seeking to become parents must make use of some assisted reproductive technique ("ART'), as must some heterosexual married couples. Despite the growing number of people who want to create families, including those that resort to ARTs to have genetically-related children, there are significant moral, economic, and legal obstacles in their way. What has long been needed is a codified roadmap for a successful surrogacy agreement that delineates the rights and obligations of the parties involved, as well as the responsibilities to the resulting child. In addition, such a codified roadmap must vest parentage automatically in the intended parents, with no judicial intervention or approval required, so that the children born are guaranteed their legal parents from conception. This article argues that state courts and legislatures need to emerge from the "uncharted waters" of surrogacy and adopt the ABA's self-executing, administrative model for surrogacy agreements. Adoption of this model not only allows prospective intended parents to know that their intent will be legally preserved, but also ensures that children born to them are treated equally. Such an attempt to equalize children's status demonstrates a policy for eliminating the penalty for illegitimacy and ensuring that children born through surrogacy enjoy the same rights as children born to a married couple.

Disciplines

Contracts | Jurisprudence | Law | Law and Society | Sexuality and the Law

Recommended Citation

Christine M. Lorillard, Informed Choices and Uniform Decisions: Adopting the ABA's Self-Enforcing Administrative Model to Ensure Successful Surrogacy Arrangements, 16 Cardozo J. Equal Rts. & Soc. Just. 237 (2010).
Available at: https://larc.cardozo.yu.edu/cardozoersj/vol16/iss2/3