New York State one step closer to legalising commercial surrogacy

The New York senate passed a bill recently which, if made into law, would legalise commercial surrogacy in New York State.

You may find it surprising to hear that at the moment, it’s illegal to pay for surrogacy in New York, and only altruistic surrogacy is allowed. This means that intended parents who live in New York and wish to have a child through commercial surrogacy are having to travel to other states which permit it, such as California. This involves added cost, complication and stress.

The laws surrounding surrogacy vary from state to state, so when planning a surrogacy journey in the States, it’s really important for intended parents to do comprehensive research when deciding where their surrogacy arrangement will take place.

Although the new bill has been welcomed by many, it has also received a lot of criticism from various high profile feminists and religious groups. The bill must now be approved by the state Assembly, and it’s future is far from certain since several prominent assembly members have already indicated that they will not be supporting the bill.

If you’d like to read more on this, our fertility solicitor Suzi Denton has written a piece for a recent edition of BioNews here.