Archaic Rules Applied in Gay Man’s Estate Dispute

Gay City News – July 24, 2014 by Art Leonard

BY ARTHUR S. LEONARD |  An early 2014 ruling from a surrogate judge in Manhattan highlights the dangers of making a will without the assistance of somebody knowledgeable about estate law. And, it also illustrates one court’s surprising reliance on old cases rather than on the evolving precedents in same-sex partner law in the decades leading up to New York State’s 2011 marriage equality law.

In a February 14 decision, New York County Surrogate Nora Anderson resolved a disputed distribution from the estate of Ronald D. Myers, who died in 2006, by apparently making a “presumption in favor of” a relative, his mother, “as against unrelated persons,” in this case his surviving partner, Dr. Martin Ephraim. Both Myers’ mother and Ephraim have since died as well, making this a battle between their heirs.

The attorney for Ephraim’s estate, Karen Winner, has now filed a motion for re-argument, contending that the court’s decision overlooks significant precedents dating back to the 1980s establishing the “family” status of cohabiting same-sex partners.

The problems in this case stem from a homemade will Myers created in 1981, by which point he and Ephraim had already been together for 11 years. In the will, Myers designated Ephraim and his mother as executors, but when Myers died in 2006, his mother renounced her appointment, so Ephraim served as the sole executor.

In the will, Myers provided that “all monies will be left to my Mother, Roberta F. Long. And that all Stocks of IBM will be left to Dr. Robert Ephraim. And also all personel [sic] property will be left to Dr. Robert Ephraim.”

In carrying out his duties as executor, Ephraim paid over to Long, who survived her son, the roughly $40,000 in cash in the estate. At his death, Myers owned a substantial portfolio of stocks, including but not limited to IBM, which Ephraim transferred to himself, treating the non-IBM stock as “personal property.”

When Long subsequently died without a will, her administrator filed an objection to how Ephraim had distributed the stock, arguing he was entitled under the will to inherit only the IBM stock and Myers’ “personal effects.” When Ephraim himself died, his brother stepped into the case, which now pits Ephraim’s heirs against Long’s for the value of the non-IBM stock, which made up the bulk of the estate. (Winner’s motion for re-argument mentions, as the court’s opinion did not, that Myers had separately purchased annuities for his mother valued at $165,000, which passed to her outside the estate.)

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in Estate Planning / In the News / Legal  by Anthony Brown 0 comments

Fertility Clinics Scan for the Strongest Embryo

New York Times, July 12, 2014 by Andrew Pollack

Annika Levitt initially resisted the fertility clinic’s suggestion that only one embryo — rather than the usual two or more — be transferred to her uterus because she was too small to risk carrying more than one baby.

“You go through all that and you put only one back in?” she recalled thinking, fearing it would lower her chances of becoming pregnant.

But her embryos had been tested for chromosomal abnormalities, giving a fair degree of confidence that the chosen one was healthy. “Knowing that it was the strongest of the strong was reassuring,” she said. Ms. Levitt, who lives in Morris County, N.J., gave birth to a girl from that embryo and is now pregnant from another single-embryo transfer.

The chromosomal testing is one of the techniques now coming into use to help fertility clinics answer one of their most vexing questions: Which test-tube embryo or embryos will give a woman the best shot at having a baby?

Another new technique uses time-lapse imaging to study the development pattern of the embryo.

Both techniques can potentially provide more information than the approach now used to judge an embryo’s fitness, which is to look at its shape under a microscope.

That could increase the sometimes frustratingly low efficiency of in vitro fertilization. And if clinics can be nearly certain that an embryo is fit, they might feel more comfortable transferring only one embryo rather than two or more, as is common practice. That would reduce the chances of producing twins or triplets, which face greater health risks than single babies.

“What’s really good about this is we get high rates with singletons,” said Dr. Richard T. Scott Jr, clinical and scientific director at Reproductive Medicine Associates of New Jersey, where Ms. Levitt went.

But some experts say the new techniques, which can add thousands of dollars to the cost of in vitro fertilization, are being heavily promoted without data supporting that they truly improve pregnancy rates. For some women, they say, chromosomal testing, an invasive procedure, might even worsen their chances of getting pregnant.

“A significant portion of women may actually be hurting themselves by doing that,” said Dr. Norbert Gleicher, medical director of the Center for Human Reproduction, a fertility center in Manhattan.

The chromosomal testing is called preimplantation genetic screening, or P.G.S. This is different from a related technique called preimplantation genetic diagnosis, which tests embryos for specific mutations with the goal of preventing the birth of a baby with a genetic disease. With the chromosomal screening, the goal is mainly to improve birthrates, not influence the traits of the baby.

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in In the News / IVF  by Anthony Brown 0 comments

Would-be parents fleeced, surrogates abandoned by Mexican surrogacy operation Planet Hospital

By ABC.net.au By Jane Cowan and Bronwen Reed – July 8, 2014

An unscrupulous surrogacy operation in Mexico has left clients thousands of dollars out of pocket, and dozens of would-be surrogates abandoned, a Foreign Correspondent investigation has revealed.

Some of the clients are believed to be Australians.

At least one of the surrogates tracked down by Foreign Correspondent miscarried after being impregnated with twins, and received only a fraction of the money she was promised.

The man behind the operation, Rudy Rupak, has done the same thing previously in two other countries, according to one of his former employees.

Earlier this year, Foreign Correspondent exposed India’s lucrative commercial surrogacy industry, following two Australian couples on their own odyssey to create a baby.

Clinics offering an array of affordable fertility services are springing up in cities, towns and villages across the subcontinent.

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in In the News / International / Surrogacy  by Anthony Brown 0 comments

European human rights court orders France to recognise surrogate-mother children

By RFI – June 26, 2014

The European Court of Human Rights (ECHR) has ordered France to recognise children born to surrogate mothers abroad even though surrogacy is banned on French territory. Refusal to do so undermines children’s identity, the court ruled in cases brought by two French families.

France has the right to ban surrogate parenthood but not to refuse granting legal to parent-child relationships of children born to surrogate mothers, the ECHR ruled on Thursday.

The “legal guinea pigs”, as one father described them, were two families, the Mennessons and the Labassees, who have children born to surrogate mothers in the US, where the practise is legal in some states.

Twins, Valentina and Fiorella Menesson, were born in 2000 in California, having been conceived from their father’s sperm and a donor’s oocyte, and have US citizenship.

Juliette Labassee was born in Minnesota in 2001 in similar circumstances, and is also a US national.

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in Adoption / In the News / International / Surrogacy  by Anthony Brown 0 comments

Jason Hanna and Joe Riggs, Texas Gay Fathers, Denied Legal Parenthood Of Twin Sons

by Michelangelo Signorile – Huffpost.com, June 18, 2014

It’s heartbreaking to think that a state has erased the parents of children and put a family in legal jeopardy, simply because of discrimination against gay and lesbian couples. But that’s what happened to a gay couple in Texas after what they described as the “magical” birth of their twin boys.

Jason Hanna and Joe Riggs are the proud fathers of Lucas and Ethan, who were born in April, after they’d connected with a surrogate mom, CharLynn.

Each of the men is a biological father to one of the babies. But, because Texas has a ban on gay marriage (it was ruled unconstitutional by a federal judge last February, but the decision was stayed pending appeal), and because a judge can use his or her own discretion in these cases, neither of the men is currently on the birth certificates of either of the boys, nor have they been able to co-adopt each other’s biological child.

Only the surrogate mother — who has no biological relationship to the boys, since embryos were transferred to her — is on the birth certificates. In essence, the men are not legally defined as the parents of their own children. And though they have DNA tests for proof, they’re worried, particularly if something were to happen to one of them while the other still has not been able to co-adopt the other’s biological child.

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in In the News / Second Parent Adoption / Surrogacy  by Anthony Brown 0 comments

The T.M.I. Pregnancy

New York Times

By PATRICIA VOLK

 

Becoming a mother was so simple when I became a mother. Pregnancy was treated as a natural experience. You peed in a cup, and then once a month the obstetrician pressed his stethoscope against your belly and you watched his face for a smile.

“We’re going to have a baby,” my son, Peter, calls. I think about being a grandma and the grand continuum. I think about the wondrous ways my boy’s life is going to change. I do not think about sonograms, DNA testing and preeclampsia. I do not think about the endless forbidding stream of fetal data.

My son is stuck at work, so I get to take my daughter-in-law for her first prenatal visit. The doctor squeezes gel on Erika’s belly and rubs it in with a paddle. A white watermelon seed pops up on the screen.

“Your baby is 7 weeks and 5 days old,” she says.

Wow, I think. Yes, but will it get into Harvard?

Erika’s blood is drawn to test for three birth defects. Taking a personal history, the doctor discovers the watermelon seed will be half Jewish.

“We’ll be needing 18 tests now,” she says.

We pretend not to be anxious waiting for the results. From that first visit on, every time I accompany Erika for an ultrasound, we leave guardedly happy. “Normal” becomes our favorite word. I’m not a Luddite. Prenatal science has helped a lot people and people-to-be. But just because a patient can know something, must she? There’s so much information available now. Pregnancy is treated like a nine-month illness cured by childbirth. Odds are in this baby’s favor, yet every sonogram adds something scary to the pot. What is one of the most joyous times of life has turned into something ominous and fraught, loaded with the potential to go wrong.

Three months before Erika’s due date, the tech turns to us with a caliper in her hands. “The baby has a short long bone,” she says. “Its long bone” — a.k.a. femur — “is two weeks behind schedule.”

We leave the office and head for lunch. Holding hands, we wait for the light to change. I look down at the white parallel lines on the crosswalk. I’m not a religious person. I own three menorahs and my biannual brisket is held in high regard. But I don’t believe in God. Yet when the light changes, I make a promise to something somewhere. I make a pledge that is the opposite of modern science: “If I only step on the white lines, the baby will be O.K.”

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in In the News / Parenting  by Anthony Brown 0 comments

Poll: Majority of Americans Support Adoption by Same-Sex Couples

The Advocate – June 2, 2014

Most Americans support marriage equality, but even more of them believe same-sex couples should be able to legally adopt children, according to a new poll.

The Gallup poll, released last month, shows a clear majority of respondents in support of adoption equality. This finding holds across all major demographics, although there are definite spans across party lines — 80% of Democrats, 61 percent of independents, and 51 percent of Republicans support adoption rights — and age groups, with 77 percent support among 18-29 year olds, and 52 percent among those 65 and older.

Gallup notes that support for equal adoption rights has been steadily increasing since 2008. When Gallup first started polling Americans on this question in 1992, the findings were a direct opposite, with 63 percent of respondents opposed to same-sex couples being allowed to legally adopt. Today, more than 16,000 American same-sex couples have adopted an estimated 22,000 children, according to the polling agency.

In its assessment, Gallup points out that public support for equal adoption, currently at 63 percent, has remained higher than public support for equal marriage, currently at 55 percent. That’s to be expected, says LGBT public policy expert Gary Gates, of the University of California Los Angeles School of Law’s Williams Institute.

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in Adoption / In the News / Parenting  by Anthony Brown 0 comments

Australian Government to order fertility clinics to release donor information

Sydney Morning Herald – May 11, 2014 by Nicole Hasham

Fertility clinics will be forced to hand over information about anonymous sperm donors so children can learn about their genetic origins, in a move that has divided doctors and offspring advocates.

The state government will also consider bringing in laws to protect donor records, after an inquiry heard “alarming” evidence that doctors had destroyed information to prevent donors being outed.

Health Minister Jillian Skinner plans to establish a central, government-run register of sperm donor records, allowing offspring to apply for non-identifying information about their donor fathers. This could include medical history, ethnicity and physical characteristics such as eye and hair colour.

The register also raises the prospect that more donors and their offspring would make contact, by offering a linking service if both parties consent. Under a current, little-publicised voluntary system, just 21 offspring and 20 donors are registered.

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in Anonymous/Known Donation / In the News / International / Known Donor / Legal / Parenting  by Anthony Brown 0 comments

Utah Supreme Court Grants Stay In Gay Adoption Rulings

By Carlos Santoscoy
Published: May 18, 2014

The Utah Supreme Court on Friday granted a stay in several lower court orders requiring the Department of Health to issue birth certificates in adoptions involving married gay couples.

According to Salt Lake City’s Fox 13, the stay was granted in response to a Utah attorney general’s office request for clarity in the cases.

“Enforcement of the district court orders mandating or authorizing Petitioner to issue birth certificates is stayed until the Court can address the petitions for extraordinary relief,” the court wrote.

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in Adoption / In the News / Legal  by Anthony Brown 0 comments

Does ‘Sperm Donor’ Mean ‘Dad’?

By BROOKS BARNESMAY 2, 2014 – New York Times

LOS ANGELES — He is a movie star who shot to fame on a motorcycle in “The Lost Boys.” She is a California massage therapist from a prominent East Coast family. Four years ago, with his sperm, her eggs and the wonder of in vitro fertilization, they produced a child.

From there, the tale gets very, very messy.

For the last two years, Jason Patric and Danielle Schreiber have been waging what has become one of the highest-profile custody fights in the country — one that scrambles a gender stereotype, raises the question of who should be considered a legal parent and challenges state laws that try to bring order to the Wild West of nonanonymous sperm donations.

Played out on cable news, dueling “Today” show appearances, YouTube videos and radio call-in talk shows, this rancorous dispute, which heads back into a California courtroom next Thursday, serves as cautionary tale for any man considering donating sperm to a friend and any woman considering accepting it from one, experts say.

“The resonance here is enormous because of the increasing number of families being formed today outside of traditional marriage,” said Naomi R. Cahn, a family law professor at George Washington University and the author of “Test Tube Families.” “Single heterosexual women, lesbian couples, men who donate sperm expecting to be part of a child’s life — they had better be paying attention.”

Is this a case about a desperate dad who is being maliciously prevented from seeing his son, as Mr. Patric insists? Or is it about a woman’s right to choose to be a single mother and have that choice protected from interference, as Ms. Schreiber’s lawyers assert? Is it both?

And exactly how did these two end up as the public faces of a complicated debate that exposes America’s increasingly fuzzy definition of what constitutes a family?

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in In the News / Known Donor / Legal / Parenting  by Anthony Brown 0 comments