[Avodah] Surrogacy

[Rich, Joel]

Here's the current state in NJ - an issue which poskim are wrestling with as well (YUTORAH -R Brander has some shiurim on this topic)

December 31, 2009
New Jersey Judge Calls Surrogate Legal Mother of Twins
By STEPHANIE SAUL<http://topics.nytimes.com/top/reference/timestopics/people/s/stephanie_saul/index.html?inline=nyt-per>

A New Jersey judge has ruled that a gestational surrogate who gave birth to twin girls is their legal mother, even though she is not genetically related to them.

The ruling gives the woman, who carried the babies in an arrangement with her brother and his male spouse, the right to seek primary custody of the children at a trial in the spring.

The case illustrates the legal complexities of gestational surrogacy, in which a woman carries unrelated embryos created in a petri dish. A gestational surrogate in Michigan recently obtained custody of twins she carried, but courts in several other states have upheld the rights of people who contracted with gestational surrogates.

<SNIP>

Judge Francis B. Schultz of Superior Court, who ruled in the case in Hudson County, N.J., relied heavily on the precedent established by the New Jersey Supreme Court in 1988 in the case of Baby M. The surrogate in that case, Mary Beth Whitehead, carried her own genetic child for another couple after artificial insemination with the man's sperm. After Ms. Whitehead decided that she wanted to keep the baby, the court ruled that her maternal rights could not be terminated against her will.

"The surrogacy contract," the Baby M court found, "is based on principles that are directly contrary to the objectives of our laws. It guarantees the separation of a child from its mother; it looks to adoption regardless of suitability; it totally ignores the child; it takes the child from the mother regardless of her wishes and maternal fitness."

Citing that passage, Judge Schultz wrote, "Would it really make any difference if the word 'gestational' was substituted for the word 'surrogacy' in the above quotation? I think not."



KT
Joel Rich
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