 Great well, I'm really thrilled to be here and my goal today is to provide an overview of the law in the US and some of the Trends that we're seeing in surrogacy legislation in the US The surrogacy has been and continues to be a contested issue in the US And as a result the law in the US is mixed. We have some states that prohibit surrogacy Some states that permit and regulate surrogacy and a number of states that have yet to weigh in have no legislation addressing surrogacy But that said while the law is surely mixed in the US the very strong Trend in the last 15 years is in favor of legislation that permits and regulates surrogacy But before I talk about these more recent trends I want to start by talking about some of the early history in the US so national attention in the US was really brought to bear on surrogacy in the 1980s With the tested custody dispute Related to the baby and litigation that probably many of you are familiar with arising out of New Jersey This was a custody dispute between a traditional or what I'll refer to as a genetic surrogate Mary Beth Whitehead and intended parents William and Elizabeth Stern and the case really spurred the first wave of surrogacy legislation in the US and most of this first wave of legislation with legislation prohibiting surrogacy and Among these statutes many of them rendered any surrogacy agreements so that the agreement itself was prohibited many of the statutes also expressly provided that any covered agreement was void as a matter of law and Some of the statutes even provided that there could be civil and insomniated criminal penalties associated with people who were involved in surrogacy agreements and In this first wave of legislation running from the 1980s through the 1990s Feminists and reproductive rights advocates were actively engaged in the policy discussions Regarding surrogacy and indeed they were some of the most active advocates in this conversation And surely and the feminist position was not uniform There were feminists who oppose feminists who supported surrogacy, but the dominant public position of Feminists at this time was to oppose compensated surrogacy and there are a number of different justifications for the opposition to compensated surrogacy at the time at This time in the very early years of surrogacy arrangements There was a fear that many of the people serving as surrogates would be low income and as a result exploited any derangements some feminists raised concerns that Permitting surrogacy arrangements reinforce the view that women's roles were primarily related to their sexual and reproductive capacities Some opponents raised concerns that people acting as surrogates might come to regret That they made and then of course there were also concerns beliefs that the children and society in general might be harmed as a result of compensated surrogacy and Due in part to the active engagement of feminists again Most of these early statutes did prohibit surrogacy arrangements in the US But as I said in more recent years, we have seen a really dramatic shift and what we have seen is An almost uniform shift in favor of legislation that permits and regulates at least some forms of surrogacy need every statutory scheme that has been enacted in the last 15 years has been a statutory scheme that permits and Regulates at least some forms of surrogacy and the states on this list Really run the political spectrum So they range from the very deep blue state of Washington to the most recent state a very very deep red state of Oklahoma on just past legislation permitting some forms of surrogacy And a number of the states on this list that now permit and regulate surrogacy are states that previously had statutory provision banning surrogacy and Our number of reasons why we have seen this shift in the US. I'm first at least some of those original concerns that I Listed before have not borne out or at least they have not developed to the degree that people had feared So while it is true that people acting as surrogates tend to be less affluent than intended parents for the most part They tend not to be in dire financial circumstances And second many although certainly not all of the people acting as surrogates have reported that the experience was a positive one Or at least not a highly negative one Third there's a growing appreciation that banning surrogacy does not end the practice And we've heard about that today Instead what often happens is it either just drives it to other parts of the country or other parts of the world? Or it pushes it underground and it's actually when that happens that we're seeing some of the most exploitative and concerning practices For I think some former opponents have come to believe that if what the goal is is to better protect the people who are acting as surrogates that a bit more effective way of achieving that goal may be to permit and regulate surrogacy and to include important safeguards in that legislation and then finally I think there's a growing appreciation among at least some some feminists that some of the arguments that have been used to oppose surrogacy are quite similar to arguments that are used to oppose other types of reproductive freedom for women And this is particularly true with regard to claims about women being coerced by male partners And also claims that women may come to regret decisions that they make to enter into surrogacy agreements And so for all of these reasons Permissive regulatory regime The most statute Recognize that where the party is to a compliant the station agreement have complied with the rules that the intended parents will be recognized as it was as the parents of the resulting child and Increasingly statutes are providing that this is true often as a matter of law or by operation of law And so what this means is that people can go to court and get an order declaring the intended parents to be parents And most people do as a matter of practice because it's helpful to have that order But often they're not required to do that But they simply are recognized as parents as a matter of law And this is true for example in Washington state, which has been a state that prohibited compensated surrogacy for many many years But last session Washington state enacted a statute that permits and regulates surrogacy and it went into effect in January of this year And this rule Assigning parentage to the intended parents where the parties have complied with the rules It's consistent with the rules that apply in other situations involving non surrogacy of this reproduction That is for non surrogacy assisted reproduction The person who have deliberately brought the child into the world through assisted reproduction Typically are recognized as the parents of that resulting child And while this approach when applied to surrogacy specifically certainly is not uncontroversial The benefits of having this kind of a rule is that it provides all the parties with certainty and clarity about their legal status If they comply with the rules the parties have assurance that the law will reflect and reinforce their intentions about who will be the parent of the resulting child and Importantly it ensures that the child will not be left parentless in addition and Some states including Washington Parties are permitted to get pre-birth orders Declaring that the intended parents are the legal parents of the resulting child But I do want to note that importantly Typically in states that allow these pre-birth orders the statutes Make clear that the parentage does not arise until a child is born And that's because there is no human being that exists to which parentage could be attached until there is a child That exists And allowing these kind of pre-birth orders as I think probably many or all of you know in a room can be very helpful They facilitate the sort of mundane but really important tasks That need to be attended to with regard to the birth of a child making sure the child has health insurance Making sure the birth certificate is properly filled out So as I just said in many states the intended parents who a compliant Gestational surrogacy agreement are treated in law as the legal parents of the resulting child in a very small number of states There are very few requirements that must be met for that agreement to be compliant and so I put California in this category There are very few requirements that must be met to have a compliant surrogacy agreement essentially the parties have to be represented by counsel and The agreement has to be executed prior to pregnancy, but that is that's about it To have a compliant agreement and I would put California I would I would describe it consistent with the title of this panel of sort of free market approach But California is a minority I would actually describe most permissive states in the US as permissive Regulatory regimes that include quite a few more requirements for that agreement to be Inforceable agreement and I want to spend time now drilling down into some of the trends that we're seeing in these permissive regulatory regimes in the US and So one trend that we're seeing in the US In these permissive regulatory regimes is a trend in favor of more inclusive rules About who the intended parents can be so in the past Some states that permitted and regulated surrogacy Limited enforceable surrogacy agreements to situations where the intended parents were a married couple And of course at this time in 2001 same-sex couples could not marry so that meant it was limited to different sex married couples And these limitations Worked not only to reinforce bias and discrimination against lesbian gay bisexual and transgender couples But they also reinforce the stereotype that families consist always of one mother and one father Parties who perform different roles and different functions within the families They also of course reinforced negative stereotypes about non-marital families who were not entitled to enter into enforceable agreements And then probably most importantly these rules harmed children children who were born into couples that didn't comply with these rules who then May not have legally recognized relationships with the people who were indeed functioning as their parents Increasingly though what we're seeing is that more recently enacted statutes now permit agreements involving any two Intended parents regardless of sex sexual orientation or marital status So again, this is true now in Washington state And this is now the majority trend in the US and by moving towards these more inclusive intended parent rules The statute called all people accountable for their deliberate procreative behavior And in so doing they provide greater certainty and security to the parties who are involved in these agreements The second trend that I wanted to highlight is a trend in favor of rules that provide greater protections For the people who are acting as surrogates So as I said earlier surrogates at least in the US cannot to be poor But nonetheless they do tend to have fewer financial resources than they intended parents And moreover as compared to other forms of assistive reproduction Syrogacy does involve significant health risks to the person who is acting as a surrogate and of course it involves a more Serious and more lengthy bodily intrusion than other forms of assisted reproduction And so an appreciation for these realities We're beginning to see a movement in favor of statutes again that provide more protections for the people who are acting in this role And one protection that is increasingly common is a requirement of legal representation Legal representation for parties there we go for parties engaged in these Requirements some of the earlier schemes didn't require any legal representation at all Other of other early statutes might have required a legal consultation But nothing beyond a legal consultation and so if problems arose after the initial consultation Arrangement then it left the woman vulnerable Increasingly though enacted schemes almost always require independent legal representation for all of the parties involved in the agreement and increasingly Statutes are requiring legal representation throughout the surrogacy arrangement from start to finish And it's also increasingly common for the statutes to require the intended parents to pay for counsel for the people acting as surrogates And To be sure this requirement of independent legal counsel and certainly a requirement that it continues throughout the arrangement increases the cost of The arrangement and that I think is something to be attentive to Because surrogacy is out of reach for many people, but nonetheless what many policymakers have to comment is that weighing significant concerns Results in drawing the line in this way requiring legal representation and requiring it throughout the arrangement We're also seeing a shift With regard to protections for the bodily and decision-making autonomy of people acting as surrogate So in the past it was quite common to see statutes that expressly permitted the curtailment of the bodily autonomy Interests of the person acting as a surrogate So for example, there are actually quite a few states in the US that have statutory provisions that expressly permit And some states actually expressly require the person acting as a surrogate to undergo all recommended medical exams treatment and fetal monitoring procedures and there also are a number of states That allow for enforcement of provisions that regulate her behavior in all kinds of ways During her pregnancy But some of the more recently enacted statutes have rejected that kind of approach so for example The more recently enacted statute in Washington State Provides that the agreement must permit the person acting as a surrogate to have full decision-making autonomy Regarding herself and her pregnancy and that any provisions in the agreement to the contrary are void and And for many women's rights and reproductive rights advocates this shift is absolutely critical And indeed, I think this shift in legislative language is due in no small part to the robust re-engagement of feminists and reproductive rights advocates back into the conversation about surrogacy in the US and so women's rights advocates are really key players and the legislative process in Washington State That resulted in Washington moving from a state that banned surrogacy to a state that permits and regulates surrogacy Women's rights advocates were also very very engaged in the process in New York this session Follow following New York has banned surrogacy since 1992 There was a strong push to enact Provision that would have regulated and permitted surrogacy in New York and again women's rights advocates were very very active In that conversation in New York and as a result while the legislation did not pass It was amended throughout the session and by the end the legislation would have provided the most robust protections for people acting as surrogates of any legislation in the US third again as a result of And pushing and urging from women's rights and reproductive rights advocates We're also seeing more states in the US regulate surrogacy brokers So third parties that connect people acting as surrogates and intended parents in the past Surrogacy brokers remained almost entirely unregulated in states that permitted and regulated surrogacy But that's beginning to change So we have a small but growing number of states in the US that now expressly regulate surrogacy brokers and The fourth trend that I wanted to highlight is much more emergent, but nonetheless, I think important to highlight and that is based on the uniform parentage act of 2017 we now have two states in the US that have provisions Governing the ability of children that were conceived through assisted reproduction to access information about their gamete providers To be clear There's no state in the US that currently requires disclosure of information about gamete providers Instead what these provisions do is they require people who are providing gametes to sign an affidavit either of identity Disclosure or identity non-disclosure if they sign an affidavit of identity disclosure When the child turns 18 the collecting bank must provide that identity information To the child and it does require the collecting bank to disclose not identifying medical information Regardless of what kind of affidavit the provider signs And then the first the fifth trend that I wanted to highlight is one that I think is still quite a bit in flux And that is the differential legal treatment of genetic or traditional surrogacy on the one hand and Justational surrogacy on the other so I had mentioned that we've got this very strong trend In favor of statutes that permit and regulate surrogacy in the US now it's 17 states But only six of these states permit and regulate genetic surrogacy Two of them only permit genetic surrogacy if the person acting as a surrogate is a family member And then the four other jurisdictions while they permit genetic surrogacy They have different rules that apply to genetic surrogacy specifically with regard to the right of the person acting as a surrogate to terminate the agreement Typically in permissive regulatory states the agreement is binding once pregnancy has occurred But in these jurisdictions the person acting as a surrogate if she is a genetic surrogate Has the right to withdraw her consent until a later point in her pregnancy or possibly in three of the states Until some period of time after the child has been born And there obviously are a variety of reasons sounds like a number of other countries drows distinction between genetic and justational surrogacy and indeed actually the uniform current eject of 2017 For which I served as a recorder also draws the distinction that treats genetic and justational surrogacy differently I do however think that this is an issue that does warrant additional conversation and consideration Obviously genetic surrogacy it does not require IVF. It is a more simple medical procedure That means it's a little bit less expensive than justational surrogacy Which means that is within reach of some people who might not otherwise be able to afford justational surrogacy and Because again, it does not require IVF genetic surrogacy Subjects the person acting as a surrogate to fewer medical risks and it also doesn't require someone to serve as an OVA provider And therefore reduces the medical risk for that person The current rules in the US though strongly channel people in to justational surrogacy And for these reasons again, I think Reconsideration and further discussion is warranted and helpful It may be that after further reconsideration The decision is made to stay the course and to need to treat them differently But again, I think that it's one and then maybe this forum Is the the very place to have that conversation and with that I will end my remarks and I look forward to questions and comments