Gestational Carrier Bill Clears New Jersey Legislature

Twice-vetoed New Jersey Surrogacy legislation that would sanction the type of surrogacy-for-hire contracts famously deemed unenforceable three decades ago in the state Supreme Court’s In re Baby M case has now passed the Legislature.

Twice-vetoed legislation that would sanction the type of surrogacy-for-hire contracts famously deemed unenforceable three decades ago in the state Supreme Court’s In re Baby M case has passed the Legislature a third time.new jersey surrogacy

Lawmakers were hardly unanimous on the issue. On Thursday, S-482 passed the Assembly by a vote of 51-16, with six abstentions. Earlier, on March 26, it passed the Senate 25-10. The votes were along party lines, with majority Democrats voting in favor, and Republicans voting against or abstaining.

S-482 could be met with a friendlier reception from new Gov. Phil Murphy, a Democrat, than its predecessors, which were blocked twice by former Gov. Chris Christie, a Republican.

The legality of such contracts has been a historically contentious issue in New Jersey.

Surrogacy arrangements made national headlines in 1988 when the state Supreme Court issued its watershed ruling in In re Baby M, which voided surrogacy-for-hire contracts. In that case, the mother initially agreed to carry the fetus to term and surrender the baby to the biological father and his wife, but had a change of heart—to which the court held she was entitled, given the public policy in favor of biological parents maintaining parental rights to their children.

But, as proponents of gestational carrier legislation in recent years have pointed out, science has advanced since Baby M, and a woman can carry a fetus with no biological connection.

In 2012, the court, in a 3-3 split in In the Matter of the Parentage of a Child by T.J.S. and A.L.S., let stand a lower court ruling that parental rights do not vest in the wife of a man who fathered a child through an anonymous egg donor, which was carried by an unrelated surrogate.

Baby M, meanwhile, has remained good law.

Christie vetoed the legislation in 2012 and 2015. Last year the measure once again passed the Senate, though the Assembly didn’t take action before the close of the legislative session. In his 2012 veto, Christie said not enough research had been done to study the possible ramifications. “While some will applaud the freedom to explore these new, and sometimes necessary, arranged births, others will note the profound change in the traditional beginnings of a family that this bill would enact,” Christie said in a veto statement at the time. In his 2015 veto message, he said the sponsors had done nothing to allay his concerns since the prior attempt.

by David Gialanella, NJ Law Journal

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in In the News / Legal / Legislation / Surrogacy  by Anthony Brown 0 comments

Oklahoma Adoption Bill Allowing Discrimination Against Gay Couples Clears House Panel

An Oklahoma House committee has approved a bill that seeks to allow religious child welfare organizations, including adoption and foster care agencies, to discriminate against same-sex couples.

Senate Bill 1140 cleared the Senate last month with an overwhelming 35-9 vote in Oklahoma adoption matter.

The bill states: “To the extent allowed by federal law, no private child placing agency shall be required to perform, assist, counsel, recommend, consent to, refer, or participate in any placement of a child for foster care or adoption when the proposed placement would violate the agency’s written religious or moral convictions or policies.”adoption

Senate Majority Floor Leader Greg Treat, a Republican from Oklahoma City, has defended his bill, arguing that it would increase the number of adoptions in Oklahoma by expanding the pool of faith-based organizations participating.

The House Judiciary Committee advanced the bill to the full House for consideration, adding an amendment that excludes agencies that receive state funding.

The Human Rights Campaign (HRC), the nation’s largest LGBT rights advocate, said that the bill does not take into account the best interest of children.

“SB 1140, if passed, would allow state-licensed child-placing agencies to disregard the best interest of children and turn away qualified Oklahomans seeking to care for a child in need,” Cathryn Oakley, state legislative director and senior counsel at HRC, said during a press conference. “This would include LGBTQ couples, interfaith couples, single parents, married couples in which one prospective parent has previously been divorced or other parents to whom the agency has a religious objection.”

by Carlos Santoscoy, ontopmag.com, April 12, 2018

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Mississippi high court issues pro-LGBT decision

Mississippi is one of those deep South states that really did not want to allow same-sex couples to marry.

It didn’t want them to adopt children either. And even after the U.S. Supreme Court said states had to let same-sex couples marry, Mississippi fought back for a while to try and keep them from divorcing. So maybe it wasn’t such a big surprise recently when a state court ruled that the non-biological mother of a child born in Mississippi to a lesbian couple married in Massachusetts but now divorcing shouldn’t be able to claim any parental rights.anonymous donor

That’s what happened in 2016. A chancery (or family) court in Mississippi ruled that a child born to a lesbian couple using insemination of an anonymous donor’s sperm was the child of the biological mother and the anonymous sperm donor –not the biological mother’s same-sex spouse.

But on April 5, the Mississippi Supreme Court, one of the most conservative in the nation, ruled unanimously that was the wrong result.

The nine-member court ruled that, because state law prohibits a father from “disestablishing” his paternity to a child conceived by alternative insemination, “the Legislature never intended for an anonymous sperm donor to have parental rights in a child conceived from his sperm –irrespective of the sex of the married couple that utilized his sperm to have that child.”

Beth Littrell, the Lambda Legal attorney who represented the non-biological mother in this case, Strickland v. Day, said that, while the decision is binding only in Mississippi, it can have impact elsewhere. Littrell said it can “help fill the void left by many states when it comes to the rights of children born via [alternative insemination].” And, she said, “it also is significant because it was rendered by a conservative southern state’s court of last resort….”

The Mississippi Supreme Court, said Littrell, “not only added weight to the consensus that biology alone does not establish parentage but did so in a gender-neutral way that recognized that the parties were a legally married same-sex couple at the time the child was born notwithstanding that it was years before Mississippi was forced to recognize marriage equality.”

Mississippi was forced to recognize marriage for same-sex couples in 2015, after the U.S. Supreme Court ruled (in Obergefell v. Hodges) that state bans against equal marriage rights for same-sex couples violates the federal Constitution’s guarantee of equal protection.

Subsequent to Obergefell, some states –particularly deep South states—tried to buck against that ruling. Mississippi tried to continue enforcing its state ban against allowing same-sex couples to adopt, and it passed a law allowing businesses to deny services to LGBT people and same-sex couples. That latter law is still in effect. Arkansas tried to bar a woman’s name from the birth certificate of a child she had with her same-sex spouse, the child’s biological mother. The U.S. Supreme Court reversed that decision, in Pavan v. Smith, but now the case is back before the U.S. Supreme Court because the Arkansas Supreme Court denied the couple’s right to recover attorneys fees.

And though the Mississippi Supreme Court decision in the current case, Strickland, is not binding outside Mississippi, Littrell said “it is persuasive authority that should be helpful whenever any court considers marriage equality, the retroactive application of Obergefell v. Hodges and the parental rights” of couples who use alternative insemination.

 

by Lisa Keen, keennewsservice.com, April 10, 2018

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Arizona Governor Signs New Human Embryo Law

When a couple is unable to conceive naturally or medical treatments — like chemotherapy — make future pregnancies unlikely, there are a variety of fertility options available, including harvesting a woman’s eggs, freezing them and using them at a later date.

Up until now, reproductive fertility law specialists in Arizona would help couples navigate any tricky ethical issues that might arise in the future, like what happens if you split up or divorce before you decide to use the eggs.Arizona Embryo

But, a new law signed Tuesday by Gov. Doug Ducey has the potential to upend any contractual agreements written between husbands and wives or domestic partners, and dictates who is allowed to keep frozen eggs after a breakup.

Cathi Herrod, President of Center for Arizona Policy, said the new human embryo law helps make the law clearer and it is a positive step for Arizona.

“Just like a judge will decide when there are disputes over property, disputes over who gets the family dog — now who gets the family embryos will also be decided by a judge according to the law,” Herrod said.

by Lauren Gilger, KJZZ.com, April 4, 2018

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in Assisted Reproductive Technology / Embryo Donation / In the News / IVF / Legal / Legislation / Religious  by Anthony Brown 0 comments

John Oliver’s Pence-Trolling Gay-Bunny Book, Marlon Bundo, Sold 180,000 Copies in Two Days

Last Week Tonight is getting the last laugh in its (perhaps one-sided) feud with Mike Pence. On Sunday, John Oliver announced that staff writer Jill Twiss and illustrator E.G. Keller had penned a picture book that purposefully apes the Pence family’s own children’s book about their bunny, Marlon Bundo.

In a twist of expert trolling, Oliver just revealed that his team’s book not only beat the Pence family book on the charts, but has also sold 180,000 copies already—just days after its publication was announced. What’s more, the book isn’t even available in bookstores yet—only Amazon.Marlon Bundo

Oliver joked about those amazing results in a Tuesday night interview with Seth Meyers. The Last Week book (titled Last Week Tonight with John Oliver Presents a Day in the Life of Marlon Bundo) is a direct send-up of the Pence family’s own book, titled Marlon Bundo’s Day in the Life of the Vice President. While the Pence book is about Bundo following Vice President Mike Pence around for a day, the Oliver book is about Bundo falling in love with a boy bunny and getting married—a direct response to Pence’s anti-L.G.B.T.Q. reputation. In addition, all proceeds of the Last Week Tonight book go to non-profit organizations the Trevor Project and AIDs United.

While Oliver and his team probably hoped that their creation would beat the Pence book in sales, they couldn’t have predicted the book shooting all the way up the Amazon charts, beating out heavy titles like James Comey’s not-yet published A Higher Loyalty.

by Yohana Desta,

Vanity Fair – March 21, 2018

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NY requires infertility coverage for all

New York’s health insurers will be required to provide coverage for fertility treatment regardless of marital status or sexual orientation, according to new state guidelines.

The state Department of Financial Services unveiled the new guidelines Wednesday, circulating a letter to insurers across the state making clear that they can’t restrict fertility-related coverage if the patient otherwise qualifies.health insurance

“All women who wish to have a child are entitled to insurance coverage for fertility treatment regardless of their sexual orientation or marital status, just as all women have the right to reproductive choice and to decide if and when to start a family, and New York will always stand up to protect and preserve those rights,” Gov. Andrew Cuomo said in a statement.

The new guidelines are based on the state department’s interpretation of “infertility.”

State law requires insurers to cover treatment for infertility and use the American Society for Reproductive Medicine’s definition of the term to determine when fertility-treatment coverage kicks in.

he society defines infertility as the “failure to achieve a successful pregnancy after 12 months or more of appropriate, timed unprotected intercourse or therapeutic donor insemination.”

But that definition is silent on marital status and sexual orientation, which the state’s new guidelines attempt to clear up.

Under the new guidelines, insurance companies must provide coverage for all individuals who meet the society’s definition of infertility, regardless of their sexual orientation or relationship status.

“If an individual meets the definition of infertility and otherwise qualifies for coverage, then an issuer must provide coverage regardless of sexual orientation, or marital status or gender identity,” Financial Services Superintendent Maria Vullo said in a statement.

by Lindsay Riback, The Journal News, 4 /19/2017

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Christian Adoption Agencies Caught Refusing Same-Sex Parents – and Now Taxpayer Funds Are Being Halted

Christian Adoption Agencies Caught Refusing Same-Sex Parents – and Now Taxpayer Funds Are Being Halted

Two Christian adoption agencies in Philadelphia are under attack – and under review – after being caught with policies refusing same-sex couples and LGBT people from adopting children in their care. In the last year alone the City of Philadelphia has paid them a total of $3 million to care for the children in need of loving homes. Those payments are now on hold and an investigation into both agencies is underway.adoption hate

Bethany Christian Services and Catholic Social Services are bth refusing to alter their policies, insisting same-sex marriage is not in keeping with their religious beliefs, The Philadelphia Inquirer reports.

“This has been our practice throughout our nearly 75 years of operation and is based on our adherence to what we believe to be foundational Biblical principles,” a spokesman for Bethany Christian Services told the Inquirer. 

“Catholic Social Services is, at its core, an institution founded on faith-based principles,” a spokesman for the Philadelphia Archdiocese said. “The Catholic Church does not endorse same-sex unions, based upon deeply held religious beliefs and principles. As such, CSS would not be able to consider foster care placement within the context of a same-sex union.” 

by David Badash, TheNewCivivlRightsMovement.com, March 19, 2018

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Same-sex adoption is now legal everywhere in Australia

Same-sex couples can now adopt children anywhere in Australia.

The Northern Territory was the last region of the country holding out against the tide of progress – until this week.same-sex adoption

 In a historic move, lawmakers added amendments to the NT Adoption of Children Act which mean that same-sex couples – as well as de facto couples – can now legally adopt.

Before now, only straight couples were allowed this right.

The decision comes after the federal Parliament’s followed the country’s wishes – expressed in the overwhelming 62 to 38 percent result of the postal vote – by legalising equal marriage.

by Josh Jackman, PinkNews.co.uk, March 15, 2018

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Ga. governor signs LGBT ‘neutral’ adoption bill

Republican Gov. Nathan Deal of Georgia on Monday signed into law a comprehensive bill updating the state’s adoption law after he joined a bipartisan coalition of lawmakers in killing proposed changes that would have allowed adoptions by same-sex couples to be denied on religious grounds.

The Georgia General Assembly’s approval of the sweeping adoption reform bill, known as HB 159, which includes no restrictions against same-sex couple adoptions, appears to have been overshadowed by the passage by the Georgia Senate on Feb. 23 of a separate bill, the Keep Faith in Adoption and Foster Care Act, or SB 375.

That measure calls for allowing private adoption agencies receiving state funds to deny adoptions for certain couples or individual parents based on “sincerely held religious beliefs.” Legal experts say the bill’s language would allow faith-based adoption agencies to decline to approve an adoption for those with whom they disapprove, including single parents, unmarried couples and LGBT couples.

The bill would prohibit the state from defunding or penalizing a private adoption agency for making adoption decisions based on religious grounds.

Upon approval last month by the State Senate, SB 375 was sent to the House Judiciary Committee. A spokesperson for the committee’s chair, Rep. Wendell Willard (R-Sandy Springs), told the Washington Blade on Tuesday that Willard had yet to schedule a hearing for the bill due to the committee’s consideration of numerous other bills. The spokesperson said she didn’t know when or if Willard planned to call a hearing.

Under the Georgia General Assembly’s 2818 legislative session, any bill that isn’t fully approved by the state House and Senate by March 29 will be considered dead for the session.

Jen Ryan, a spokesperson for Deal, told the Blade in an email that the “governor’s office doesn’t comment on pending legislation.”

However, at least one source familiar with Deal and the Republican-controlled legislature said Deal and a number of prominent GOP lawmakers have made it known they oppose SB 375, among other things, because they believe its perception as a discriminatory law would hurt efforts to bring and retain large businesses in the state.

Deal made his views known on that score in 2016 when he vetoed a “religious liberties” bill that critics said would have given employers and landlords authority to discriminate against LGBT people on religious grounds.

in Adoption / In the News / Legislation / Politics  by Anthony Brown 0 comments

Republican senators want to protect people with anti-gay beliefs with the First Amendment Defense Act

President Trump has promised to sign the First Amendment Defense Act into law

Twenty-two Republican U.S. senators have reintroduced the First Amendment Defense Act, a bill that would potentially allow people to discriminate against LGBTQ individuals or same-sex couples under the guise of “religious freedom,” reports The Hill.Discrimination

The bill would insulate any individual who holds “a sincerely held religious belief” opposing homosexuality, transgenderism, or same-sex marriage, or any business operated by an individual with such beliefs, from being penalized or punished by the government should they be found to have discriminated against such people.

As a result, it would prohibit the government from levying fines against people who discriminate, denying them government contracts, or taking away special tax breaks, so long as the person claims that their refusal to provide goods or services was motivated by their religious beliefs.

Critics have warned that the bill is so broadly written that it would not just condone discrimination against LGBTQ individuals and same-sex couples, but single mothers, divorcees, those who engage in premarital sex, or anyone else whose lifestyle does not comport with a person’s religious beliefs, no matter how radical or out-of-the-mainstream those beliefs may be.

The bill was sponsored and introduced by Sen. Mike Lee (R-Utah), and co-sponsored by several prominent conservative senators, including Marco Rubio (Fla.), Ted Cruz (Texas), Orrin Hatch (Utah), Ron Johnson (Wis.), and Rand Paul (Ky.).

A similar iteration of the bill was introduced in both the House and Senate in 2015, but only received a hearing in the House. The measure failed to gain traction, and was eventually set aside by leadership amid protests from Democrats, and the realization that then-President Obama would veto the measure if it managed to pass Congress.

Lee had previously promised to reintroduce FADA after Donald Trump was elected president. Lee’s House counterpart, U.S. Rep. Raul Labrador (R-Idaho), now running to be the next governor of Idaho, said last he would introduce similar legislation in the House during the current session, but never did, according to a search of filed bills in Congress.

By John Riley, metro weekly.com, March 8, 2018

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