Surrogacy and Custody in Pennsylvania

While surrogacy is legal in Pennsylvania, it is important to establish clear guidelines early in the surrogacy process and to seek legal counsel to ensure that the intended parents are actually listed as parents on the child’s birth certificate. Some counties in Pennsylvania may be willing to establish pre-birth court Orders regarding parentage of a child born via certain types of surrogacy (e.g. surrogacy using the parents’ own egg and sperm), while other counties will not. In a traditional surrogacy, when the surrogate mother is biologically the mother of the child (i.e. she was not implanted with a donor egg but rather her own egg was fertilized), the Court cannot grant a pre-birth order regarding parentage because the biological mother (though she is acting as a surrogate) cannot consent to the termination of her parental rights until at least 72 hours after the child’s birth.

There have been unfortunate situations when a sperm donor or a surrogate fight for custody of a child born via surrogacy, and seeking legal counsel early on can help to avoid some of these situations. For example, one sperm donor successfully sought custody of a child after forcing the mother to get genetic testing, because the parties had never entered into a contract and there was no court Order establishing that the mother’s spouse was the intended second parent of the child.

If you are interested in learning more about protecting your parental rights in a surrogacy matter, contact Tanner Law Offices at (717) 731-8114 to schedule a consultation with one of our attorneys.