Now I read that Beitler Insurance, our insurance company, is being sued by New Life Agency for a surrogate’s maternity bills. Go to http://www.reuters.com/article/pressRelease/idUS106349+19-May-2009+PRN20090519
– Anthony
ATLANTA — By a vote of 108 to 61, the Georgia House sent the nation’s first ever embryo adoption bill, HB 388, to the desk of Governor Sonny Perdue for him to sign into law.
“We are pleased that we are making headway in our goal of establishing personhood for the pre-born” says Daniel Becker, President of Georgia Right to Life. “Gone are the terms designating the human child at an embryonic stage as property … devoid of rights.” says Becker.
The language of the bill stops short of declaring full personhood for the child but does introduce new terms that acknowledge for the first time that an embryo has “rights and responsibilities” that are owed to it under Georgia law. “Legal embryo custodian” replaces “embryo donor” throughout Georgia’s new code sections dealing with embryo adoption. No longer is an embryo described as being “donated” by its genetic parent.
“Gametes, cars, old clothes and other property are ‘donated'” says the bill’s author, House Rep. James Mills, “not children … they are adopted.”
It also clarifies that an embryo’s life begins “at a single-celled” stage. “This is an important distinction as we see the medical community attempt to lessen the personhood of an embryo by re-defining a zygote to be a ‘pre-embryo'” says Becker.
“Estimates are that over 40,000 cryo-preserved human embryos are abiding in concentration cans in our state,” says Becker, “this will allow them an opportunity to have a birthday.”
It is also possible that a Federal Adoption Tax Credit will now be available to parents to offset the legal costs of adoption. The limit under IRS guidelines is $11,500.
“We look forward next year to the passage of a companion bill, SB169, the Ethical Treatment of Human Embryos. This would effectively ban therapeutic and reproductive cloning, destructive embryonic stem cell research and human/animal hybrids.” says Becker. The Georgia Senate had passed SB 169 by a vote of 34 to 22.
Other pro-life initiatives passed this session include Senate Resolution 328, “that the members of this body recognize that the right to life is paramount and the need for protection of the lives of the innocent at every stage.”
Georgia Right to Life (www.grtl.org) promotes respect and effective legal protection for all human life from its earliest biological beginning through natural death. GRTL is one of the number of organizations that have adopted Personhood (www.personhood.net) as the most effective pro-life strategy for the 21st century.
05/15/2007
ProudParenting.com
Colorado Governor Bill Ritter recently signed legislation that allows same-sex couples to adopt.
The Colorado Springs Gazette.com reports that House Bill 1330 by Majority Leader Alice Madden, D-Boulder, allows the joint adoption of children by unmarried couples, including gays and lesbians, unmarried heterosexual partners and relatives seeking to help single mothers.
Colorado becomes the 10th state in the country to allow such second-parent adoption.
OK- When a surrogacy agency tells you that your carrier is uninsured, but that it is not a problem, think twice. We have a great carrier, and agency, but the insurance provider, Beitler Insurance has allowed medical bills to be sent directly to the surrogate, some even going into collection. This is unacceptable. We already funded the medical trust and don’t know why this could continue for 6 weeks. It is a big problem now so make sure that your surrogate has her own insurance or that you have a good insurance provider.
Anthony & Gary
May 21, 2009ADULT adoptions, an established though infrequently used financial planning tool, have attracted increased attention as a way for gay and lesbian couples to secure an inheritance.
It is not necessary to use this strategy to transfer your own assets, which can be left to anyone you choose. But trust fund beneficiaries who do not have children of their own may be able to use adult adoption to steer trust funds to the person of their choice, rather than having the money go to their siblings, the children of their siblings or other relatives.
The stakes, financial and emotional, can be high. Unlike marriages, adoptions are extremely difficult to reverse. The strategy can backfire if a relationship ends, leaving an outsider with a share of the family fortune. And adult adoption can alienate family members by leading to distributions of family wealth in ways never contemplated by the person who set up a trust.
“If you leave things in trust, which is a great estate-planning device, you give your children the ability to some degree to manipulate that by adoption,” said David G. Keyko, a lawyer with Pillsbury Winthrop Shaw Pittman in New York, who has successfully represented several adopted adults in their legal battles with families. One case, involving Chandi Gail Heffner, the companion adopted by the heiress Doris Duke in 1988, was settled in 1995 for more than $65 million.
Of course, not all adult adoptions end in court battles. While statistics are scarce and these cases are unusual, lawyers say successful adoptions generally proceed below the radar.
Citing privacy concerns, lawyers and clients are reluctant to share details. Adult adoptions include not only same-sex couples, but also others who want to provide for a stepchild, a loyal employee or a distant relative.
Still, for those contemplating adult adoption, the cases that go awry are more informative, teaching valuable lessons in how to avoid mistakes.
Trusts often have current beneficiaries — who are entitled to assets immediately — and future beneficiaries, who do not receive distributions until an event like the death of another beneficiary. Often a son or daughter, rather than a spouse or partner, is next in line to receive a share under a family trust, said Mary F. Radford, a professor at Georgia State University College of Law in Atlanta.
In some families, adult adoption leads to a struggle between blood relatives trying to keep an inheritance in the family and an adult whose legal status in the family has come through adoption.
The law requires trustees to honor the intentions of the person who created the trust. That means interpreting the trust’s wording, and when that is done in court there is often conflicting evidence about what parents or grandparents would have wanted.
“Not too many of them might even think of the possibility that somebody might adopt another adult with whom they were living,” said Joshua S. Rubenstein, a lawyer with Katten Muchin Rosenman in New York.
Almost half the states prohibit adult adoption, and laws, which vary by state, can be restrictive. Even in states that allow such adoptions, a trust’s creator can exclude people adopted after a certain age (say, 10 or 18), preventing adopted adults from becoming trust beneficiaries.
Given the complexities, those who want to explore adult adoption would do well to consult with both an adoption expert in the state where they might adopt and an estate-planning lawyer. Names can be found on the Web site of the American Academy of Adoption Attorneys and the site of the American College of Trust and Estate Counsel, a group of trust and estate lawyers.
Many of the challenges and pitfalls of adult adoption — and the passions that can surround it — are illustrated by two lawsuits involving Olive F. Watson, whose grandfather Thomas J. Watson Sr. founded I.B.M.
In 1991, Ms. Watson, then 43, adopted her lesbian partner, Patricia Ann Spado, who was then 44, after they had been together for 14 years. The relationship ended less than a year later, and Ms. Spado received $500,000 in cash from Ms. Watson but did not give up the right to inherit as her adopted child.
The lesson? Painful as it may be to contemplate an end to a relationship, consider the possibility and think about what rights you might want to retain for any children you may subsequently have.
After Ms. Watson’s mother died in 2004, Mr. Keyko, representing Ms. Spado, asserted in a letter to the family lawyer that she should share in three multimillion-dollar family trusts. The trustees disagreed and asked a probate judge in Greenwich, Conn., to decide whether the trusts, which included biological and adopted descendants, covered her. According to court papers, Thomas J. Watson Jr., who died in 1993, had not known about the adoption, and Olive Watson said in a deposition in a different suit that she had not told her father about it because he would not have approved.
The court ruled that the trusts were designed for grandchildren — by then there were 18 — who had a “typical parent/child relationship” with Mr. Watson’s children. “Watson did not intend to benefit someone who is adopted for no reason other than to obtain his money,” Judge David W. Hopper of the Greenwich probate court wrote in his decision in 2006. Ms. Spado has appealed.
Separately, the trustees filed a case in Maine, where the adoption took place, to have it annulled, and a probate judge in Rockland granted their request last year, 17 years after the adoption took place.
It is extremely rare for a court to annul an adoption; in this case, the judge ruled that the adoption was based on fraud because Ms. Spado did not live in Maine but went there only during the summer. (New York, where the couple spent most of their time, does not allow adoption of a sexual partner.) Ms. Spado has appealed that ruling, as well.
Her lawyer, Michael P. Koskoff, of Bridgeport, Conn., who estimated that Ms. Spado’s share of the trusts was $5 million to $15 million, called the suits a “multistate attack” against “this woman who was a partner in a gay relationship.”
Ms. Watson, who declined to comment, lives in Miami with her current partner and their two children, ages 8 and 10, beneficiaries of the same trusts to which Ms. Spado makes a claim. Not a party to either lawsuit, Ms. Watson said in a deposition for the Maine case that when she adopted Ms. Spado she had sought to make her the beneficiary of her own trusts, not the trusts for the Watson grandchildren.
The lessons here? Family opposition to an adult adoption should never be underestimated. And family members should be informed about your intentions; don’t surprise them.
Also, it is important to make sure that the lawyers advising you have all the facts. In wealthy families with multiple trusts, you need to consider the impact of an adult adoption on these documents. While parents and grandparents have no obligation to share every detail of their financial planning, it doesn’t hurt to ask. Communication is crucial to mutual understanding.
Over time, changes in the legal landscape might create other ways for gay couples to provide for each other, said Mary L. Bonauto, civil rights project director at Gay and Lesbian Advocates and Defenders, a legal advocacy group in Boston. The group is seeking to overturn the federal Defense of Marriage Act of 1996, which defines marriage as a union between a man and a woman, and thereby excludes same-sex couples from the financial benefits that spouses are entitled to under other federal laws.
For example, same-sex couples cannot file joint income tax returns, receive Social Security survivor benefits or postpone estate tax on assets inherited from each other. This is true even if they are married in one of the five states that allow same-sex marriages.
Were the federal law repealed by Congress or found to be unconstitutional, adoptions by same-sex partners could become “a historical anomaly,” said Keith Bradoc Gallant, a lawyer with Day Pitney in New Haven, Conn.
But that day will not come soon. Meanwhile, lawyers say same-sex partners will continue to struggle to find ways to provide for each other.
Very Important….
ADOPTION and why its indispensable for your family’s survival.
One thing that all same-sex couples face is legal guardianship of the baby or babies. In a perfect world we wouldn’t really need to deal with adoptions but in our time now its vital. Not only god forbid a physical emergency happen with the baby but also to be able to protect your right as a parent. I have heard such horrible stories that the hospitals wont let you exercise your parental nurturing because of silly rules. You think it wont happen to me but you don’t want to find yourself in that horrible predicament, Imagine a stranger tell you , sorry your not the parent! I would flip but that’s besides the point- I’m covered 🙂 thanks to Anthony, we will come back to that soon.
Now no one wants to think of breaking up or unforeseen relationship stress. If you don’t adopt whether the child was made with your egg or your partners egg and you were to attempt a battle you would have no grounds and you would have NO RIGHTS!!! The woman that gave birth to the child under NY State Law is the Mother and sole guardian.
Equally important is what if something happens to your partner and she carried and you never adopted? Well I’m sad to say but that child now belongs to her family or in some cases the state.
The only way to protect yourself and have the legal power to make decisions for your child is adopting. Now I have an amazing attorney and gentleman named Anthony Brown 🙂 who is savy with gay rights and just a kind soul. He will make the whole process seamless.
Maria and I just finished our Adoption this past March. It was a very special day. In a nut shell after waiting months and submitting loads of paperwork. The court gives you a date. You come dressed to impress of course, and sit with a judge who states some facts on the papers you signed. Then he has some closing remarks which are extremely emotional.
You are now a legal partner of the most precious human in your life, your child. It feels great and best of all no one can ever challenge your parental rights.
You can find Anthony’s information this website.
Until next time……….
By 365gay Newswire
05.13.2009
Sarasota, Fla.) Today, the Florida Court of Appeals unanimously reversed a lower court ruling and held that Florida must give full faith and credit to adoptions granted to same-sex couples by other states, holding that Lara Embry, the plaintiff in the case, “must be given the same rights as any other adoptive parent in Florida.”
The court based its decision on the Full Faith and Credit Clause of the federal constitution and a Florida statute requiring Florida to honor adoption decrees from other states.
Noting that “there are no public policy exceptions to the full faith and credit which is due to judgments entered in another state,” the court concluded that “regardless of whether the trial court believed that the Washington adoption violated a clearly established public policy in Florida, it was improper for the trial court to refuse to give the Washington judgment full faith and credit.”
A concurring opinion further noted that Embry’s “same-sex relationship with [the other parent] is irrelevant for the purpose of enforcing her rights and obligations as an adoptive parent.”
Lara Embry had filed a petition seeking shared custody of a child she had raised with her former partner, Kimberly Ryan. The couple had two children together. Each gave birth to one child, and each adopted her non-biological child through a second-parent adoption in the state of Washington, where the family lived. The couple moved to Florida, and their relationship ended several years later. They agreed to share custody of both children and did so successfully until Ryan unilaterally decided to separate the children, who are deeply bonded as siblings, and cut off all contact between Embry and one of the children.
The National Center for Lesbian Rights (NCLR) and Leslie Talbot represented Lara in her initial suit for shared custody. In February 2008, a Florida trial court held that Florida would not recognize the couple’s second-parent adoption. NCLR, Karen Doering, and the law firm of Carlton Fields represented Lara in the appeal. Former Judge John R. Blue and Cristina Alonso, attorneys with Carlton Fields briefed and argued the case before the Second District Court of Appeal on March 18, 2009.
“We are pleased this decision resolved an important constitutional issue and protected the legal bond between adoptive parents and their children,” said Blue. “The court affirmed the longstanding rule that Florida must honor valid adoptions from other states, which ensures the permanence and stability of parent-child relationships across state lines.”