For National Infertility Week, we are ready to start asking the tough questions. One tough question: Are your lawmakers and legislatures supporting issues important to the infertility community?
While there are countless options for family formation, families still require legal action to create and secure their legal rights between and among parties involved in the assisted reproductive technology (ART) process and the children that are born of ART.
Currently, Pennsylvania has no statutory law addressing these types of ART arrangements. In Pennsylvania, we rely on administrative law, case law and the Pennsylvania Department of Health regulations. We use this information to create the procedures to establish rights of intended parents and to carefully create arrangements to limit rights of parties involved in the ART process that are not biologically related to the child to establish the intent of the parties involved. Such options utilized are donor agreements, gestational and traditional surrogacy agreements, pre and post-birth orders and step-parent adoptions. Although, despite the lack of statutory authority, Pennsylvania is still viewed as a state where positive arrangements can be made for establishing rights of individuals or children conceived through ART.
Due to the lack of statutory guidance, however, lawmakers and legislators need to know that without their support, Pennsylvania citizens will continue to apply archaic laws to new age ART technology in order to protect their rights during the process. So start asking your lawmakers and legislatures to take action and make law in Pennsylvania.
All this week, KingSpry’s ART Law Practice Group is marking Infertility Week by summarizing related legal issues. #StartAsking – and stay posted.
heARTbeat is a publication of KingSpry’s Adoption Law and Assisted Reproductive Technology Law Practice Group. It is meant to be informational and does not constitute legal advice.
