UPDATE: As of May 30, 2018, New Jersey residents are allowed to entire legally binding agreements with gestational carriers under a law signed by Governor Phil Murphy.
New Jersey Governor Chris Christie recently vetoed the New Jersey Gestational Carrier Agreement Act. This is bipartisan legislation that would have granted legal parental rights to the intended parents of a child carried by a gestational surrogate. This Act would ultimately provide legal protection, by contract, to those individuals who choose to conceive by using a gestational carrier. It authorizes particular gestational carrier agreements with the purpose of promoting the best interests of the child, who will be the result of the surrogacy agreements. This act is a gateway to establishing appropriate family and parental rights. It also helps to address the legal issues associated with reproductive technological advances in surrogacy.
Summary Of Reason For Veto
New Jersey’s governor Christie vetoed the proposal due to concerns regarding the remodeling and restructuring of traditional families. Governor Christie saw the authorization of such contracts as stated in the Act as having the potential to raise significant issues that would threaten the development and beginning of traditional families. Other reasons for the veto included the supposed exploitation of a woman’s body, exemplified through a gestational carrier, who is usually a poor woman carrying a wealthy woman’s baby. Those opposed to the Act also raised concern with the lack of protection for the gestational carriers, thus assuming that a profit will be made off of poor and vulnerable women. With the governor’s veto, there is no law that protects the carrier’s child, meaning that intended parents and gestational surrogates will continue these arrangements without legal protection or will travel to other states within the U.S. in order to gain these legal protections.
U.S. States Where Compensated Surrogacy Is Legal
Unlike New Jersey and New York, there are many U.S. states where gestational surrogacy is legal and where gestational surrogates are treated with respect and gratitude. Some of the states where surrogacy is legal include Connecticut, Rhode Island, New Hampshire, Maine, and Pennsylvania and there are many others. In these states, validation and enforcement of gestational surrogacy agreements, as well as pre-birth orders of legal parentage, protect intended parents.
