Surrogacy & Assisted Reproductive
Technology Law
Increasing numbers of intended parents are choosing to build their families through a collaborative effort with egg or sperm donors, gestational or traditional surrogates, and qualified medical teams. Equally important to the intended parents who choose this parenting option and the surrogates and donors who work with them is competent, collaborative, ethical, protective, and caring legal assistance. For more than 20 years I have been providing that legal assistance to intended parents, gestational carriers, surrogates, and donors.
Oregon has very little law governing surrogacy and ART law. Despite the lack of specific laws, choosing this path to parentage can be legally complex. Over the years I have done more than just represent clients. I have played an integral part in the development of Oregon Administrative Rules relating to surrogacy and ART law matters.
In 2007 I pioneered the use of a relatively simple parentage process as an alternative to adoption. This parentage process establishes the intended parents as their baby’s legal parents and is now used on a regular basis in Oregon. In most cases parentage can be established prior to your child’s birth.
How can I help you?
- By meeting with you to explore the parenting, surrogacy and donor options available to you through Assisted Reproductive Technology law and gestational or traditional surrogacy.
- Providing you with a balanced and insightful perspective of this very personal process, including the importance of treating all participants with respect and fairness.
- Drafting, reviewing and negotiating applicable contracts on your behalf, including discussion of your legal rights and responsibilities.
- Working with you to make sure these legally complex contracts are understandable.
- Facilitating communications with medical providers, including hospital staff.
- Parentage establishment in Oregon.
Whether you are a donor, the gestational or traditional surrogate, or the intended parents, you deserve to be legally protected and treated in a sensitive, respectful and fair manner throughout your journey. Surrogates and donors want to help someone become parents — intended parents want to become a child’s mom or dad. My goal is to provide you with the specialized and experienced legal services you need to navigate this complex path.
In The News
Oregon’s paid surrogates are choice for same-sex couples around world
By
Tamara Belfatto of North Plains was a gestational surrogate last year, carrying a baby for a couple from another country. She and her husband, Andrew, have one child, Arianna, 2. (Benjamin Brink/The Oregonian/OregonLive)
Oregon has a pre-birth procedure for amending a birth certificate so it bears the names of the intended parents and not the surrogate’s. The procedure, devised by Beaverton lawyer Robin Pope about eight years ago, allows the intended parents to bypass a court hearing through a process called declaratory judgment.
As a result, establishing legal parentage is “very straightforward” in Oregon, Pope said. The procedure puts Oregon “really ahead of quite a few states,” said Judy Sperling-Newton, director of the American Academy of Assisted Reproductive Technology Attorneys (AAARTA) and an owner of The Surrogacy Center in Madison, Wisconsin. Read the Full Article
