Michigan expected to decriminalize compensated surrogacy

Transcript

MICHEL MARTIN, HOST:

Michigan has been the lone holdout among states maintaining a broad criminal ban on using a surrogate to have a child. Families say that's left them in legal limbo, traveling out of state to have a baby, asking strangers for help, even having to adopt their own biological children. But this morning, Governor Gretchen Whitmer is expected to sign a package of bills into law that is addressing surrogacy and other reproductive technologies. Michigan Public's Kate Wells has more.

KATE WELLS, BYLINE: Surrogacy is when someone carries a pregnancy for someone else, known as the intended parents. Tammy and Jordan Myers were the intended parents when their twins were born prematurely in Michigan. The babies needed intensive care for weeks. And Tammy remembers how, as they were surrounded by beeping machines and the hushed whispers of nurses, they had no legal rights to these babies.

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TAMMY MYERS: In the early hours of their lives, we had no life-saving medical decision-making power for their care.

WELLS: That was Tammy testifying before a state Senate committee in March. Breast cancer left Tammy unable to carry a pregnancy. Under the old Michigan law, it was a crime to pay a surrogate, so the surrogate for the Myers twins was volunteering. But Michigan law also says that surrogacy contracts are void and unenforceable. So to legally adopt their biological kids, the Myers had to be fingerprinted, undergo psychological testing and endure invasive home assessments.

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MYERS: Despite finally being granted legal parenthood of our twins almost two years after they were born, our wounds from this situation remain raw.

WELLS: Michigan's surrogacy ban dates back to the '80s. Over the years, other states loosened their laws and legalized surrogacy in some form, but Michigan held out. Some religious and conservative groups say allowing compensated surrogacy in Michigan will exploit women and treat babies like commodities. Genevieve Marnon is with Right to Life of Michigan. She points out that some countries, including India and Thailand, have moved in the opposite direction.

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GENEVIEVE MARNON: Due to exploitation of their women caused by surrogacy tourism, they changed their laws.

WELLS: And Pope Francis recently called for a universal ban on surrogacy. Rebecca Mastee is with the Michigan Catholic Conference.

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REBECCA MASTEE: At the core of such agreements is a contract for a human being.

ERIC PORTENGA: That made my blood boil, hearing that.

WELLS: Eric Portenga lives in Ann Arbor with his husband, Kevin O'Neill. They became parents through surrogacy.

PORTENGA: You know that there's no commodification of this at all. You would want a family because you have love and you want to build the love that you have with your own family.

WELLS: Eric and Kevin found their surrogate across the state border in Ohio, where surrogacy contracts are legal. Those contracts require everyone to pass psychological background checks and have legal representation. And, yes, there's payment for the surrogate, all of which, Kevin and Eric say, actually gives surrogates more protection than they have in Michigan. After the embryo transfer, Kevin and Eric learned that their surrogate was pregnant with identical triplet girls.

PORTENGA: And they came out and just unraveled this huge string of ultrasound photographs. And that's when we knew our life had changed (laughter).

WELLS: The girls were born in Ohio, where Kevin and Eric could legally be named their parents. The new family of five came back to Michigan, and today Sylvie, Robin and Parker are 2 1/2.

PORTENGA: What other fruit do you like?

UNIDENTIFIED CHILD: Blueberries.

KEVIN O'NEILL: Do you want avocado for dinner?

UNIDENTIFIED CHILD: No like avocado.

WELLS: The law also has updates that will make it easier for Michigan families to use other reproductive technologies like IVF and embryo donation.

For NPR News, I'm Kate Wells in Ann Arbor, Mich.

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MARTIN: This story comes from NPR's partnership with Michigan Radio and KFF Health News. Transcript provided by NPR, Copyright NPR.