Abstract
This Article will explain the protracted legal battles over the "surrogate triplets" and explore potential legislation designed to avoid such battles in the future. While reasonable minds could certainly differ as to the wisdom of the legislative scheme proposed in Article 8 of the UPA (2000), or as to some of its details, surely it would be a vast improvement over the current situation in which most state legislatures have failed to address surrogacy through statutes and those that have done so have failed to act in a uniform manner. As the Erie triplets case amply demonstrates, the state courts in more than one state might well be required to adjudicate issues arising from the same agreement. Unfortunately, most state legislatures continue to avoid the troubling issues raised by surrogacy. The UPA (2000) was approved by NCCUSL in mid-2000. As of this writing, it has only been enacted in seven states, and five of those states did not include Article 8 in their version of the Act. Only Texas and Utah have adopted the UPA (2000) with Article 8, and both of them modified some of the language in it. Even more discouraging, the UPA (2000) was only introduced in two state legislatures (Alabama and Nevada) in 2007, neither of which enacted it; and so far in 2008, it is being introduced only in Alabama and New Mexico. Thus, despite the continued occurrence of well-publicized battles over children conceived through surrogacy, there is simply a lack of momentum among state legislatures to address this subject in a uniform manner and save other children, and other parties to surrogacy, from heartache and uncertainty.
Recommended Citation
Robert E. Rains,
What the Erie Surrogate Triplets can Teach State Legislatures about the need to Enact Article 8 of the Uniform Parentage Act (2000) ,
56 Clev. St. L. Rev.
1
(2008)
available at https://engagedscholarship.csuohio.edu/clevstlrev/vol56/iss1/3