Christie vetoes bill that would have eased tough rules for gestational surrogates

Wednesday, August 08, 2012 – NJ.com

TRENTON — Gov. Chris Christie today vetoed a bill that would have relaxed New Jersey’s strict surrogate parenting law, saying the state hadn’t yet answered the “profound” questions that surround creating a child through a contract.

According to the governor’s statement explaining the veto obtained by The Star-Ledger, “Permitting adults to contract with others regarding a child in such a manner unquestionably raises serious and significant issues.”

“In contrast to traditional surrogacy, a gestational surrogate birth does not use the egg of the carrier,” the governor wrote. “In this scenario, the gestational carrier lacks any genetic connection to the baby, and in some cases, it is feasible that neither parent is genetically related to the child. Instead, children born to gestational surrogates are linked to their parents by contract.”

“While some all applaud the freedom to explore these new, and sometimes necessary, arranged births, others will note the profound change in the traditional beginnings of the family that this bill will enact. I am not satisfied that these questions have been sufficiently studied by the Legislature at this time,” according to the statement.

Click here to read the entire article.

in In the News / Surrogacy  by Anthony Brown 0 comments

First inscription of two fathers in Argentina

Tomorrow morning, in Buenos Aires, the first inscription of the birth of a baby with two fathers will be done in Argentina. Tobías is a boy who was born a few weeks ago in India after a surrogacy process. He’s now arrived to Argentina and both his fathers will be registered with no distinction between the biological one and the other one.

 

Although Marriage Equality Act states that no difference should be made between children of same or different sex couples, and besides the fact that many birth certificates with two mothers have already been made, it wasn’t easy to get to this point as the Civil Registry was at first reluctant to do it, but the work of the Legal Staff of the FALGBT made it possible. I want to recognize my colleagues at that point.

 

Moreover, a modification to Argentina’s Civil Code is being debated in the Congress which would made this kind of registrations standard in all the country. We’ll keep you up to date about this process.

 

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

To adopt, or not to adopt… Really?

March 20, 2012 (See 2015 addendum @ the bottom of the article.)

Legal Surrogacy – To adopt, or not to adopt…???

adoptSurprisingly, that has been one of the most asked questions by parents of children born with the assistance of a surrogate mother.  In many cases, the carrier’s name may be removed from the child’s original birth certificate by a proceeding called a pre-birth order.  Some states do not provide for pre-birth orders.  Those that do, may or may not replace the carrier’s name with that of the non-biological intended parent.  California, for instance, does offer the ability to include the non-biological parent’s name on the child’s original birth certificate, and that very significant step is often mistakenly viewed as a replacement for a second parent adoption, which is the only definitive way to establish parental rights between a non-biological parent and a child born through legal surrogacy.

Legal Surrogacy is an emotionally, and financially, exhausting process.  It is a true leap of faith.  Couples considering surrogacy must juggle a myriad of concerns, the least of which being the cost.  With gestational surrogacy tabs running as high as $150,000.00, budgeting is a must.  Lawyer’s fees are often lumped together in surrogacy accounting statements, and some agencies do not include the cost of a second parent adoption in order to keep the numbers low.  Often, the cost of a pre-birth order is less than a second parent adoption.

In order to understand why a second parent adoption is vital, you must understand what a pre-birth order is, and what protections it provides.  Pre-birth orders are court orders that are obtained by filing a petition in the appropriate court in the state in which the child will be born.  Often, these petitions are not filed in the county where the carrier lives, but in a county which has a judge who understands the importance of pre-birth orders and grants them upon the motion of an attorney representing the intended parents.  This in itself may create a problem.

Some states may not recognize the relationship created by the pre-birth order because of the lack of a full judicial process attendant to a pre-birth order.  For an issue to be precluded from challenge, for instance the issue of a non-biological parent’s relationship to a child born through surrogacy, the court looks at the process by which that issue has been established.  The reason why adoption orders from one state are valid in every state, regardless of the gender of the parents, is because the judicial process of the adoption.  The state, for all intents and purposes, becomes and “adversary” to the adoptive parents in the adoption process.  The state performs background checks, it orders that fingerprints be taken, mandates that a homestudy is performed by a licensed social worker to ensure that the child’s prospective residence is safe and clean and essentially verifies that all adoption requirements by the petitioning parent, or parents.  The adoption order is the product of a fully litigated judicial process.  Because this rigorous process is not part of a pre-birth order proceeding, states which do not offer pre-birth orders may not recognize a relationship created in such an order.

Furthermore, some courts, through a pre-birth order, will add the name of the non-biological parent to the original birth certificate if that person is married to the biological parent.  For same-sex couples, this can present a fatal issue, particularly if the non-biological parent’s relationship to the child is being challenged in a state that does not recognize same-sex marriage.  These situations usually arise upon the dissolution of a relationship and during the custody/visitation/support aspect of that process.

In New York County, Legal Surrogacy Judge Kristin Booth Glen, in a case entitled In the Matter of Sebastian[i] discusses the issue of establishing parental rights for a non-biological parent specifically.  The case involves married lesbian couple who used an anonymous sperm donor to have a child. Glen concludes, “that although [the] petitioner [non-biological parent] already has a legally protected parental relationship with Sebastian [through a marriage recognized in New York] and, even in the absence of that legal relationship, could utilize several less intrusive, expensive and time consuming methods of establishing one, the only remedy available here that would accord the parties full and unassailable protection is a second-parent adoption pursuant to New York Domestic Relations Law (“DRL”) § 111 et seq.”  Glen further states, “that a judicial order of adoption in one state must be afforded full faith and credit in every state, and that there can be no “public Policy” exception to that mandatory recognition…”.

The Matter of Sebastian case is an amazing confluence of family law, Constitutional law and reproductive law, with the ultimate conclusion that same-sex parents need to adopt to secure the non-biological parent’s rights to their children.  It is a broad and definitive statement that applies to all same-sex families, regardless of how their children were conceived.

While parents going through legal surrogacy must navigate financial and emotional waters, as well as an unsure legal landscape, the last step in the process, the second parent adoption, may seem like an afterthought.  It is, however, the only way to complete the process and ensure that each parent has a permanent and portable legal relationship with the child.

 

 

ADDENDUM (July 17, 2015) – It seems like ages ago when I wrote this piece, and the gay rights movement has literally transformed the world in those short 3 years.  While marriage equality is the law of the land in the United States, many people misinterpret this truly revolutionary civil rights gain as having the same transformative and direct effect on family law, specifically as it applies to the rights of a non-biological child to their bio parent’s spouse, even if achieved through legal surrogacy. 

While it is true that many states have what is called a “martial presumption of parentage,” the truth about this is that it is applied differently in different states.  For instance, in New York state, where I practice, there is specific case law that holds that the marital presumption of parentage does not apply to same-sex couples.  That case is called “Matter of Paczkowski v. Paczkowski.”  In that case, the appellate division of the Second Department of New York, the state’s intermediate appellate court, held that the “presumption of legitimacy… is one of a biological relationship, not a legal status.”

In essence, the court says that a marriage does not create a legal right between a non-biological parent and a child.  While it may be an indication of intent to be a parent, as would a non-biological parent’s name on a birth certificate (as echoed in “Matter of Sebastian” as mention in the body of this article) the only way to actually create the legal relationship that guarantees the security that all same-sex families need, is through an adoption order, and in some states, a parentage order.  Unfortunately, New York currently does not have the capacity to issue a parentage order but there is legislation in committee in Albany that may change that. 

In our ever evolving world where gay couples and, more particularly, gay families are becoming more common place and understood, there are still areas of the law that directly affect our lives that continue to fall short of protecting our families in the ways that they must be protected.  Creating family security is of the utmost importance and it is the responsibility of every gay parent to make sure that happens.

 

 

 

 

[i]  http://www.nylj.com/nylawyer/adgifs/decisions/041009glen.pdf 25 Misc.3d 567, 879 N.Y.S.2d 677 (N.Y. Co. Sur. Ct. 2009)

in Adoption / Featured Articles / Surrogacy  by Anthony Brown 0 comments

A Cautionary Surrogacy Tale

January 5, 2012 – By Arthur Leonard – Gay City News

Facing legal questions for which no New Jersey precedent yet existed, Superior Court Judge Francis B. Schultz, on December 13, awarded the father of twin girls conceived through gestational surrogacy sole custody of the two five-year-olds.

That ruling came despite the court having earlier ruled that the surrogacy contract signed ahead of their birth was void as a matter of state law. Schultz’s earlier order found that the gestational surrogate, though not genetically related to the twins, is their legal mother.

The lengthy court battle has separated the father’s husband from his own sister, the gestational surrogate, who has rejected her earlier lesbian identity and now has moral objections to the relationship between her brother and her legal daughters’ biological dad.

In 2005, Donald Robinson and Sean Hollingsworth, then New Jersey registered domestic partners, entered into a surrogacy agreement with Donald’s sister, Angelia Robinson, for her to bear children for them. The parties originally intended that Angelia’s ova would be inseminated with Sean’s sperm so that the children would be genetically related to both men, but in the end an anonymously donated ova was fertilized in vitro and implanted in her. Angelia was a gestational surrogate rather than a traditional surrogate, and has no genetic relationship to the girls.

The couple and Angelia signed a series of agreements in 2005 and 2006 signaling their intent that the girls, when born, would be the legal children of Sean and Donald, and that Angelia did not intend to be a parent. After the girls’ birth in October 2006, she signed a consent agreement authorizing termination of her parental rights and allowing her brother Donald’s adoption of the twins.

Before the adoption took place, however, Angelia ended her same-sex relationship, renewed her conservative Baptist faith in which she and Donald were raised in Texas, renounced homosexuality, and voiced moral objections to the surrogacy arrangement. After visitation disputes arose, she filed suit in 2007 seeking custody.

Donald and Sean counter-sued seeking summary judgment that Angelia could not be deemed the girls’ mother since she lacked a genetic relationship to them. In late 2009, Judge Schultz rejected that motion, finding that under New Jersey law, the surrogacy agreement and Angelia’s consent to the adoption were both unenforceable, and that she was the twins’ legal mother.

Schultz relied on a 1988 New Jersey Supreme Court ruling that found in favor of a traditional surrogate mother who carried her biological child ostensibly on behalf of a couple. The couple argued that this case was different since Angelia was not the genetic mother as the woman in the 1988 case had been, but the judge rejected that, observing that the state high court had placed no significance on genetic relationships, instead focusing on general policy concerns about surrogacy.

The judge acknowledged that courts in some other states had distinguished sharply between traditional and gestational surrogates, but he found himself bound by New Jersey precedent.

Schultz next set for trial what had become a controversy between two legal parents, Angelia and Sean, who are not married to each other. Each of them theoretically has an equal custody claim, and in some circumstances courts will grant joint legal custody. That is really not a viable option, however, when the parties are bitterly hostile to each other.

Schultz’s decision lays out the great complexity of the case, which pitted Sean and David against Angelia and her parents, who share her moral objections to homosexuality. The twins’ racial identity also became a factor in the case. Sean’s mother is white and his father is African-American, and courts normally treat mixed-race children as having “special needs” due to the identity issues growing up in a society that thinks in racial terms. The ability of parents to provide support for them in establishing their own identity becomes an issue to consider.

Both sides presented experts, but the court relied primarily on the views of a third, neutral expert, Dr. Alex Weintrob, who, Schultz wrote, “was passionate about this.” Weintrob “strongly recommended sole custody” for Sean — who married Donald in California during the brief period in 2008 when it was legal there — “and that it be done as quickly as possible.” Weintrob contended it would be harmful to the girls for Angelia to be awarded custody, in light of her attitudes toward homosexuality and her lack of concern for the issues the girls would face as mixed-race children.

The expert found that Sean would be a superior parent in terms of affirming the girls’ identity, and as a stay-at-home parent, with Donald supporting the family, was better able to care for the children than his sister-in-law, who worked full time and would leave the girls in the care of her parents, who are also hostile to their son’s relationship with the twins’ father.

Finding that “the parents’ ability to agree, communicate, and cooperate in matters relating to the children is nonexistent here,” Schultz rejected joint custody. Awarding sole custody to Sean, he granted Angelia visitation rights to maintain her parental relationship with the girls.

The result of this ruling is that the children have two legal parents, Sean and Angelia, and an uncle, Donald, who also happens to be their father’s New Jersey registered domestic partner and California husband, but who has no legal parental relationship to them, even though they consider him to be one of their fathers.

Since Angelia has blocked her brother’s route to a second-parent adoption and New Jersey does not provide for a child having three legal parents, Donald would have no standing to challenge his sister’s custody should his husband Sean become incapacitated or die. The couple’s family relationship, therefore, remains tenuous.

This case presents a cautionary tale for gay male couples interested in having children through a surrogacy arrangement. Doing this kind of a thing in a state such as New Jersey that has no statutory or judicial recognition and enforcement of surrogacy agreements is a risky business, as written agreements may have no weight in a legal dispute. Things are even worse in New York, where a criminal statute condemns surrogacy agreements, both traditional and gestational. By contrast, surrogacy is legally recognized and such agreements are enforced in Connecticut.

Lowenstein Sandler PC represented the fathers, and Harold J. Cassidy represented the mother.

in Legal / Parenting / Surrogacy  by Anthony Brown 0 comments

South African Court Approves Surrogacy Contract for Gay Male Couple

by Arthur Leonard – November 1, 2011

South African Court Approves Surrogacy Contract for Gay Male Couple
The North Gauteng High Court in Pretora, Republic of South Africa, issued a judgment on September 27, 2011, approved a surrogacy contract involving a male same-sex couple and a woman who agreed to be their gestational surrogate. In the Ex Parte Matter Between WH, UVS, LG, BJS. The case provided an opportunity to apply the terms of Section 295 of the Children’s Act 38 of 2006, enacted to provide a legal and regulatory framework for surrogacy agreements in South Africa.

As summarized and quoted by the court, it seems that prior to the passage of this statute surrogacy agreements had no legal status as enforceable contracts, although the court reports that informal surrogacy was practiced. Passage of the Act was apparently prompted by a recognition that people were going beyond the informal practices of the past where acquaintances would help each other out, to a modern system where on-line advertising and agencies have developed to assist people who need the services of a surrogate to find one.

From the court’s description, it appears that the legislature has made a policy decision against authorizing compensated surrogacy, for the court is directed to inquire into the financial arrangements and it is clear that any compensation to the surrogate is limited to covering expenses of providing the service, and not a fee for her time and effort. The court is required to inquire into the qualifications of the intended parents to raise a child, and surrogacy for the purpose of relieving a healthy fertile heterosexual couple of the burdens of pregnancy and childbirth is not recognized under this Act. Its purpose is to recognize surrogacy contracts where the intended parents are incapable of conceiving a child on their own.

This case provided the court with the first opportunity to approve such a contract involving a same-sex couple, and the court took care to note that a psychologist’s report indicated that the two men involved were well-qualified to raise a child. In describing the role of the court in approving such a contract, the tribunal stated: “What is often at stake is not only the physical well being of the surrogate mother and the child to be born but also the psychological consequences that may follow upon the birth of the child and the process of the handing over by the surrogate mother to the commissioning parents of the child born out of the arrangement. That being so, a Court has a vital role to play in the confirmation of the agreement. While on the one hand it is enjoined to advance the spirit and the objectives of the Act without creating or placing additional obstacles in the path of litigants who seek relief, on the other as the upper guardian of all minor children it cannot simply be a rubber stamp validating the private arrangements between contracting parties.”

Thus, the court’s role is to ensure that the “formal and substantive requirements of the Act are complied with.” Since an action to confirm the agreement is brought jointly by the parties and is thus, in a sense, “ex parte,” it falls to the court to take extra care to ensure that the requirements of the Act are met, and “the Court is invariably dependant upon the information placed before it by the Applicants and thus the utmost good faith would be expected and required of the Applicants.” In this case, the court found that the commissioning parents “have made out a proper case for the relief they seek,” and that the intended parents as well as the surrogate mather are “suitable persons as contemplated in the Act.” Thus, the court confirmed the surrogacy agreement, and the case, which will be published officially, will stand as precedent that same-sex couples (in this case two men who are not natives of South Africa but who have both established domicile and married there) can qualify to enter into such contracts.

This distinguishes South Africa from some other countries where only surrogacy agreements involving married heterosexual couples may be approved, and donor insemination services are not always made available for lesbian couples.

http://newyorklawschool.typepad.com/leonardlink/

in Surrogacy  by Anthony Brown 0 comments

Dr. Doyle on ethical surrogacy practices – Paris 2011

in Surrogacy / Videos  by Anthony Brown 0 comments

Dr. Doyle of CT Fertility Calls for Ethical Surrogacy Standards in Groundbreaking Paris Conference, Challenging the French to Embrace the Practice

  9.28.2011 – PRWEB.com

American experts, a surrogate mother, French parents and academics weighed in on a topic that divides France, where surrogacy is still illegal. Instead of pros or cons, they concentrated on providing guidelines on how surrogacy can be carried out ethically. The ethical principles Dr. Doyle outlined include fully informing and protecting surrogates and donors from medical and psychological risks, treating them with dignity and respect, and considering the long term well being of all involved, including the surrogates’ families, and the children they help create.

Paris, France (PRWEB) September 28, 2011

Surrogacy in France is illegal and still controversial, yet an increasing number of French people who cannot have children on their own are turning to various surrogacy and egg donation arrangements abroad. Attempts to change the law are hotly debated and even presidential candidates are taking sides. Yet in a recent groundbreaking Paris conference hosted by the French organization ADFH, several American and French experts weighed in for the first time not on the merits of the practice, but on how it could be done in a more ethical manner. While political debates often over-simplify, “every surrogacy journey is different,” said Dr. Michael Doyle, an American IVF and surrogacy expert, as he laid out the ways clinics, agencies and prospective parents can assert control and shape their surrogacy journey in line with their moral convictions.

The “Ethical Surrogacy Journeys” seminar took place on September 19, 2011, in a packed wedding hall at Paris’s 3ème municipal building. In addition to Dr. Michael Doyle, the panel also included Karen Synesiou of Center for Surrogate Parenting, Dr. Kim Bergman, a psychologist who works with parents and surrogates at the Growing Generations agency, Colleen Iversen, an American surrogate mother, Alexandre Urwicz and Hervé Lancelin, co-presidents of ADFH, Dominique Mennesson, a French parent and the president of CLARA, and the French sociologist Irène Théry.

“We must remember, realize and embrace that this is not just a financial transaction, that this is much more than a sequence of medical procedures, since we are creating new families and bonding existing families to each other,” said Dr. Doyle. “The role of the medical clinic is to maximize the efficiency and quality of the services, minimize the risk that each party is subjected to, and to control the costs of that process. It is essential that the physician fully informs everyone involves concerning the medical steps, alternatives and risks”, he added, “even though fortunately these risks are now extremely rare and can be further minimized with adequate screening, tests and treatment protocols.” For instance, “minimizing the risk for surrogates involves transferring the fewest number of embryos of the highest quality, which increasingly in the United States is a single embryo transfer. It is also important that we support and consider the well being of all the parties, including the surrogate’s entire family, and the future children that will result from the decisions that we make today,” said Dr. Doyle.

Colleen Iversen shared her experience being a two-time gestational surrogate for a couple that with severe infertility problems. As one of the CT Fertility’s staff she witnessed the couple’s failed attempts have a baby on their own, until she finally stepped up and offered to become the couple’s surrogate herself. “I didn’t do this for financial gain,” said Colleen. Similarly to many gestational surrogates she met working at the clinic, Colleen had several easy pregnancies carrying her own children, and felt empathy towards this couple and a strong urge to help fulfill their dream of becoming parents. “Was I compensated? Yes. But was I putting my body through risks? Yes. My 5th and final pregnancy resulted in hospital bed rest where I was unable to care for my children, unable to go to work, and the health of the baby inside of me became my sole focus until the birth,” she recounted. Indeed she understands why the financial compensation is something that intended parents insist on: “if they hadn’t paid me I think they would have felt terrible putting me through all those cycles, and would have given up prematurely.” Despite the medical risks and hardships, looking back at her experience Colleen stated that she was honored to be a surrogate and “knowing that I have forever changed the lives of one family will never lead me to regret my decision to do this.”

Questions from the audience included requests for practical advise, but also concerned that surrogates may be exploited, perhaps by business women who may wish to hire a surrogate just to avoid disrupting their careers. Both Karen Synesiou of CSP and Dr. Doyle clarified that such women will not be accepted to their program, as prospective parents are also screened for their motivation and their willingness to support and treat the surrogate with respect. “There will always be unscrupulous people who may wish to exploit and take advantage of others, and it is the responsibility of those of us in the practice to maintain the highest possible ethical and professional standards and refuse to cooperate in these individuals,” replied Dr. Doyle and was greeted by applause from the audience. He challenged the self-declared feminist who asked the question not to doubt the ability of other women to make decisions that are in their best interest. “I speak from my experience with the numerous women I have worked with, as Colleen has just articulated, who say surrogacy has been one of the most empowering experiences of their life.”

Another questioner voiced concerns about babies that may be abandoned due to birth defects, and that surrogacy could lead to more questionable practices like cloning. “It is easy to take a topic like surrogacy that may seem different and challenging, and link it to things like cloning, birth defects, or embryo biopsy, that are not specific to surrogacy,” replied Dr. Doyle. “These may be worthy topics for ethical discussion some other time, but should not be used to attack the very valid notion of surrogacy which we hope you can as a culture and as a nation embrace.”

in IVF / Legal / Legislation / Surrogacy  by Anthony Brown 0 comments

New Numbers, and Geography, for Gay Couples

By SABRINA TAVERNISE – New York Times – August 25, 2011

REHOBOTH BEACH, Del. — So much for San Francisco.

The list of top cities for same-sex couples as a portion of the population does not include that traditional gay mecca, according to new census data. In fact, the city, which ranked third in 1990 and 11th in 2000, plummeted to No. 28 in 2010. And West Hollywood, once No. 1, has dropped out of the top five.

The Census Bureau data, finalized this week and analyzed by Gary Gates, a demographer at the Williams Institute at the University of California, Los Angeles, gives the clearest picture to date of same-sex couples in America. In absolute numbers, they jumped by half in the past decade, to 901,997.

Most surprising is how far same-sex couples have dispersed, moving from traditional enclaves and safe havens into farther-flung areas of the country.

Consider, for example, the upstarts on the list: Pleasant Ridge, Mich., a suburb of Detroit; New Hope, Pa.; and this beach town in southern Delaware. All three have been popular destinations for gay people locally but had never ranked in the top 10.

The No. 1-ranked town is Provincetown, Mass., at the tip of Cape Cod.

The reordering reflects a growing influence of baby boomers, who became adults in the 1960s and 1970s, when the social stigma was starting to ease, and are more willing than previous generations to stand up and be counted, Mr. Gates said.

Now that generation, arguably the first in history with such a large contingent that is out, is beginning to retire, and its life transition is showing up in the data, with older cities as the new popular choices.

“As the baby boomer generation ages into retirement,” Mr. Gates said, “we see its impact really strongly in the geography.”

The pattern was in evidence in Rehoboth Beach, a family resort town of 1,300, which was fourth on the list of same-sex couples per capita and did not figure in the top 10 rankings in 1990 or 2000.

“The change was pretty dramatic,” said Rick McReynolds, 58, a resident. “It used to be all these boys,” but now, he said, the gay population in town is older and has less of a singles scene.

But people who used to party here, like Bob Moore, a retired communications professor from Pennsylvania, have since returned with their partners to live. Mr. Moore, who came out in his 40s, after two children and a divorce, said he and his partner were looking for a place that was gay friendly, but not an exclusive enclave.

“We liked the fact that it was gay without being the Castro” neighborhood of San Francisco, said Mr. Moore, 59, who was sitting with his partner, Steve Ortleib, in Rigby’s Bar and Grill on Tuesday night.

He said they had visited four top retirement destinations for same-sex couples — two in California and two in Florida — before settling on Rehoboth.

In interviews in San Francisco on Tuesday, several gay people said the city attracted people who did not always want to become part of a couple. The census does not ask about sexual orientation.

“You settle down in small towns because there is not much to choose from,” said Nick Meinzer, 41, a hairstylist who works on Castro Street. “In urban areas we wait longer to settle down. I’ve been single for two years. They’re not counting those of us who are single.”

Of the top cities like Pleasant Ridge, Mr. Meinzer said: “I’ve never even heard of those places. You’d think if they were so great you’d have heard of them.”

Dennis Ziebell, 61, the owner of Orphan Andy’s, a Castro neighborhood diner he opened 35 years ago, said he did not believe the count was accurate. “Take another survey, that’s all I can say,” he said. “I’ve been in a relationship for 36 years and nobody from the census asked me about it.”

Last year was the third time the Census Bureau counted same-sex couples. The count included people of the same sex in the same household who said they were spouses or unmarried partners (spouses were not included in 1990). Mr. Gates calculated how many same-sex couples there were for every 1,000 households within towns and cities across the country.

New York is too big to figure prominently in top city rankings for same-sex couples per capita (it was 67th in 2010, Mr. Gates said), but it does rank by county, alongside more the more traditional locations. Manhattan is No. 5, after San Francisco County, Hampshire County, Mass., Monroe County, Fla., and Multnomah County, Ore.

The city ranking is a barometer of the changing demographics among the population of same sex couples, which has grown more diffuse throughout the country over the past 20 years.

In interviews here this week, several couples said that social attitudes had softened overt time and that living farther afield was now easier to do. Mr. Gates compared the phenomenon to immigrants who no longer sought the safety of an enclave.

Steve Elkins, who runs a nonprofit community center called Camp Rehoboth, which acts as a liaison with the gay community, said cultural training classes for the summer police force would be met by stony stares in the early days. More recently, when he asked the police officers if they knew a gay person, two people in the class raised their hands to say they were gay.

“It’s a generational change in thoughts and attitudes,” he said. Rehoboth, he likes to say, used to be an island of tolerance in a sea of homophobia, and now is an island of tolerance in a sea of outlet malls.

Further evidence, Mr. Elkins said, was the quick passage of a civil unions bill that is set to take effect in Delaware on Jan. 1.

TO READ THE COMPLETE ARTICLE, GO TO: http://www.nytimes.com/2011/08/25/us/25census.html

in Adoption / IVF / Parenting / Second Parent Adoption / Surrogacy  by Anthony Brown 0 comments

My New Kentucky Baby

May 20, 2011
New York Times
By JOSHUA GAMSON

We came to Bowling Green, Ky., home of our good-humored surrogate, Gail, with a court order from California designating me and Richard — my husband in some states, though not in Kentucky — as the future baby’s legal parents. I’d been hoping to avoid Kentucky. Its laws make it seem unwelcoming to gay people and ambivalent about surrogacy. I figured that culturally it would be red-statey too, full of homophobia, guns and fatty foods. The coasts seemed safer, especially for a black man, a Jew and their black-Jewish daughter.

We’d invited Gail to come to Massachusetts, where we were married and our first kid was born, or to California, where she went for the in vitro fertilization. She was usually up for adventure — after all, she was carrying a baby for two men made with another woman’s egg. But she wanted to keep her schedule as a clerk at an amusement park and as a single mother of three, and so our baby would be born in Kentucky.

When I arrived a few days after Richard, I didn’t find much to allay my fears. Our hotel was next to a Cracker Barrel, and the main strip contained mostly churches and fast-food joints. Our daughter, Reba, an impressionable preschooler, had already begun to say things like “Do y’all want to go to the pool?” Richard went with Gail to meet the obstetrician, who, when faced with the requirements of our surrogacy plan, got hostile and scheduled her labor to be induced on his off-day.

Not long after my arrival, our lawyer called to report that the local family court had refused to domesticate the California court order, leaving things in legal limbo. She said she would threaten to sue Kentucky for violating the “full faith and credit” clause of the Constitution and instructed us to get out of there as soon as the baby was born.

I felt vaguely unsafe and out of sorts. People seemed to stare at us. One night I dreamed that the baby was born healthy, and then stolen.

But when Madeleine Blanche came along a few days later (full head of black hair, long eyelashes), the women at the Bowling Green medical center couldn’t have been nicer. Our presence seemed to send their Southern hospitality into overdrive: they dispensed diapers, advice and coffeecake. We chatted about 4-year-olds, work and the cost of preschool. Nurse Christie brought a button for Reba that said, “I’m a big sister!” Unfamiliar heads popped in and out. Not homophobia but a kind of homophilic curiosity was swirling around us, turning us into objects of gossip but also of generosity. Anxieties about discrimination were one thing, but my assumptions about homophobia now seemed glib and snobbish.

The problem was getting out of there. One sympathetic young clerk had been instructed by hospital lawyers not to put our names down on the birth forms as parents, but Gail had declined to sign anything that gave her legal or financial responsibility for our baby. The clerk tried the form with just Richard’s name as father, but the computer spit it back, saying it required a mother. So she sent the forms, along with a copy of the California court order, to the Kentucky Office of Vital Statistics with neither Father nor Mother listed. Her small act of administrative disobedience was, to me, quite touching. The hospital released us and our legally parentless baby.

Months later, we still had no birth certificate. Smelling discrimination, I indulged in self-righteous daydreams of lawsuits, but my suspicions proved unreliable again. For Kentucky officials the problem turned out to be much more mundane than sexual taboo: they didn’t want California telling them what to put on their forms. In the end, they issued a birth certificate saying that Gail was the mother, then sealed it and issued an amended one listing Richard and me as the parents.

Finally the birth certificate arrived in the mail. With all the lawyering and money that preceded it, I was surprised that it was just a piece of paper. Then I noticed something: the California judge had directed Kentucky to list one of us as Mother and the other as Father, but Kentucky officials refused. Instead they labeled us Parent and Parent. Kentucky out-liberaled California.

We picked up Reba from preschool. She was uninterested in the news but happy for the celebratory dinner, through which the baby slept, eyelashes fluttering. I made a toast: “To Kentucky, y’all,” and I meant it.

in Personal Stories / Surrogacy  by Anthony Brown 0 comments

Surrogate mother to 6 pregnancies, says this is to be her last

May 16, 2011 –  PrideAngelAdmin
Amanda Broomhall, 39, from Penhill, has two children of her own, but since 1997 has helped couples from all over the UK have babies. Surrogacy UK has recently recorded a surge of interest following high-profile surrogacy stories concerning Elton John and Nicole Kidman. Miss Broomhall said that surrogacy was something she “fell into”.She said: “I can, so I thought why not if it helps somebody else? People give blood and give bone marrow. I’m just using a part of my body that would otherwise lay dormant.”

Surrogate arrangements are usually set up through agencies, although private arrangements can be made. As a surrogate in the UK, it is illegal for Miss Broomhall to receive payment, although some couples have offered her large sums of money to carry their child.

“People can be desperate,” she said. “People ring me up and say ‘can you help me have a baby?’ and when I tell them I can’t at the moment they say, ‘I’ll pay you lots of money’. They think if they throw money at me I will help them. They think they can buy a child.”

For each birth, Miss Broomhall only takes two weeks off work and has never let the process affect her day-to-day life. She said: “If I sat at home and rested as other new mothers do when they are looking after their new baby, I don’t think that would help me. I want to get my life back on track, so that’s the way I deal with it.”

However, nine weeks into her sixth surrogate pregnancy, Miss Broomhall has decided that this time will be her last. She said her age was the main factor in her decision to give up. “I’m not as young as I used to be,” she said.

“With the last pregnancy I did have a number of problems, mainly around my kidneys. They’re showing signs of stress. If I can’t look after myself I can’t nurture an unborn child.”

in Personal Stories / Surrogacy  by Anthony Brown 0 comments