The world is changing for same sex parents as a result of the new surrogacy laws that have come into effect in New York. In fact, as delineated in this article, history was made last Monday, when a same sex couple was granted a Pre-Birth Parentage Order, under the new statutes that have legalized gestational surrogacy in New York.
Due to the pandemic, this Court Hearing and Order was issued from the Court as a result of a virtual Court Hearing, through the Court’s preferred platform, Microsoft Teams.
For this lesbian couple, surrogacy was not the issue. However, parentage, with respect to a non-biological parent in New York, historically has been problematic. Until very recently, lesbian parents in New York and most gay parents in New York, in order to protect their interests and to secure their parental rights, needed to go through what is termed as a “second parent adoption”. In order to secure legal recognition for the non-birth mother, or in the case of a gay adoption by a single parent, the second parent adoption in also necessary. Needless to say, these legal proceedings to secure rights for the LGBTQ community cannot only take time, but are extremely costly.
With respect to a “second parent adoption”, most do not realize there is a required investigation that is quite invasive and extensive and the adoption process cannot start until the baby is born. For the non- biological parent, this puts them in limbo until after the child is born and God forbid there is an issue or a medical emergency during child birth, which could have dramatic and tragic results.
With the new law that came into effect in February, this process can be streamlined and accomplished so that both parents have parental rights with respect to the child before the child is born. This recognition and ability to accomplish the same in a much more efficient way has been a long time coming.
Selected excerpt(s) and linked article courtesy of Arwa Mahdawi, The Guardian
Royalty-free photo courtesy of Unsplash