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Category: Yale Center for Bioethics
Surrogacy Contracts Directly Enforcible in Pennsylvania
Surrogacy is legal in many states. Some, like California, directly enforce gestational carrier contracts. Others, like Texas, Illinois, and Virginia, enforce only those contracts that are entered into by a married couple who need a surrogate for medical reasons which a judge approves before embryo transfer occurs. A Pennsylvania court has now shown why gestational surrogacy contract should be directly enforced in the absence of legislation. Its well-reasoned opinion suggests that more states may be open to this approach to surrogacy.
The Pennsylvania case, In re Baby S., arose out of a gestational surrogacy agreement involving embryos created with donor eggs and husband sperm. The written agreement was indisputably clear that that the intended parents would be the legal rearing parents, their names would appear on the birth certificate, and the carrier would have no rearing rights or duties. Unlike previous cases questioning the validity of a surrogacy contract, the challenge here came not from the carrier who now wished to assert rearing rights (see In re Baby M and Calvert v. Johnson) but from the wife (the intended rearing mother). She had praised the carrier’s willingness to help her have a child, which she repeated both at the embryo transfer and at a 20 week ultrasound at 20 weeks of pregnancy, which both intended parents attended. A month later she informed the parties that “irreconcilable marital difficulties” would make it difficult for her to co-parent the child with the intended father. She also refused to complete the paperwork for her name to appear on the birth certificate as the mother.