OLR Report 2014-R-0074 answers the question: Has the legal status of parties to gestational agreements in Connecticut changed since 1999?
Since 2011, the law has defined gestational agreements and treats intended parents in a valid gestational agreement as the child’s legal parents.
By law, for births arising out of gestational agreements, the Department of Public Health (DPH) must seal the original birth certificate on which the birth mother’s name appears and registrars of vital statistics must provide a replacement copy to an eligible party who requests it. DPH must issue the replacement certificate naming the intended parents under the agreement as the child’s legal parents (1) immediately upon receiving a court order validating the gestational agreement and issuing an order of parentage or (2) immediately upon filing the original birth certificate, if it receives the court order before the child’s birth.
The law defines an “intended parent” as a party to a gestational agreement who agrees under it to be the parent of a child born to a woman through assisted reproduction. This applies regardless of whether there is a genetic relationship between the intended parent and child (CGS § 7-36).
Prior to 2011, the legal status of intended parents in gestational agreements was unclear due to statutory ambiguity and a lack of consensus among the courts. In 2011, the Connecticut Supreme Court held that the law permits a non-biological intended parent who is not the child's adoptive parent to become a legal parent of that child through a valid gestational agreement (Raftopol v. Ramey, 299 Conn. 681 (2011)). The Court also noted ambiguities in the law, which led the legislature to revise it.
For more information, read the full report.
