Surrogacy adds at least one other person to this delicate partnership - a woman who carries the baby and gives birth, and then turns the baby over to a waiting couple who become the child's parents. It is a legally complicated process that needs state oversight, but, unfortunately, current Utah law does not regulate surrogacy contracts to protect all the people involved.
A bill now in the Utah Legislature would provide that kind of oversight so custody disputes and legal wrangling can be avoided.
Surrogacy is as old as the Bible, which tells of servant women bearing children for men whose wives were infertile, and as new as in vitro fertilization, a technique in which an embryo is created from the sperm and egg of a couple and implanted in the woman's womb. In surrogacy, that embryo is implanted in the surro- gate's womb.
It is a reproduction option that is here to stay.
About one in five couples is unable to have children in the usual way, and many want a biological connection that adoption doesn't provide. It is estimated that about 20,000 babies have been delivered to surrogate mothers in the United States since the mid-1970s, and there is a growing number of agencies that match couples and prospective surrogates.
Being paid to be a surrogate is illegal in Utah and surrogacy agreements are not enforceable, which means infertile Utah couples essentially have no alternative to adoption if they can't have a child on their own or with the help of other reproductive innovations. But that doesn't mean surrogacy doesn't happen among Utah women; they simply deliver the babies in other states where such contracts are regulated and binding.
Sen. Lyle Hillyard, R-Logan, is offering a reasonable option in his Senate Bill 14, which would make surrogacy legal in Utah, within some strict parameters: The surrogate and intended parents must be Utah residents; the surrogate has been pregnant before and is capable of becoming pregnant again; the intended parents must be married and the wife is unable to bear a child.
The most important part of the legislation is that SB 14 would regulate and oversee surrogacy contracts, offering the state's protection for all parties involved, including the baby or babies. That the measure restricts surrogacy to legally married couples may be challenged on constitutional grounds, but that provision is necessary if the bill is to have any chance of approval by the conservative Utah Legislature.
Couples who want babies are not likely to be deterred by legislators' refusal to recognize surrogacy as a viable option. SB 14 not only makes surrogacy legitimate, but helps make it workable and fair for all involved.
