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Indiana's Law on Surrogacy
Author: Steven C. Litz
In 1988, Indiana passed I.C. 31-8-1-1. et. seq., which declares surrogate contracts to be against public policy, and prohibits a court from considering the contract as a basis for determining custody in the event the surrogate refuses to give up the child. That law is basically irrelevant for two reasons: 1) in the majority of cases, the surrogate and the couple are not both from Indiana, and therefore the law does not apply, and 2) surrogacy rarely fails, so the enforcement of the contract is not an issue at all.
More important than the actual wording of the law is the confusion that it has created in the public mind. Many residents of Indiana believe that surrogacy has been outlawed here. It has not. The law says nothing about onežs ability to enter into such a contract; only that if you do, and if both the surrogate and the couple are from Indiana, and if the surrogate changes her mind, then the contract cannot be used as evidence in a proceeding to determine who gets custody of the child. In a custody fight a couple has never lost (except once where a surrogate delivered twins, the husband of the couple, incredibly, wanted only the girl, and the surrogate refused to split up the children).
Copyright 1996. The American Surrogacy Center, Inc.(TASC), Marietta, GA
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