THE RIGHT CHOICE

Palm Springs Surrogacy Lawyer

Palm Springs Surrogacy Lawyer Sebastian Gibson

Surrogacy Contracts, Reproductive Birth Agreements

The use of new reproductive technologies, surrogates and fertility drugs to assist those desirous of having a baby is still developing.  While many states in the U.S. are still struggling to create a set of laws to govern surrogacy and reproductive technology used to assist in motherhood, California is and has been ahead of the vast majority of states in assisting individuals and couples to give birth where other states have either turned a blind eye or been unable to reach a consensus as to what their policy should be in this new area of law.  However, if you need a Palm Springs surrogacy lawyer, call Sebastian Gibson.

The Right Choice, Palm Springs Surrogacy Lawyer Sebastian Gibson

At the law firm of  Sebastian Gibson, we’ve always been in the forefront of new technologies and new areas of law.  And being one of California’s most educated, experienced and uniquely talented international attorneys, we are the logical firm to choose if you’re looking for a law firm that can provide you with lawyers who understand surrogacy law, fertility and assisted reproductive technology and who can assist you in enjoying parenthood, whether you’re single, married, gay or lesbian, a resident of the U.S. or from another country.

With law degrees in both the U.S. and the U.K. and over 40 years of practice in both the U.S. and internationally, Palm Springs Surrogacy Lawyer Sebastian Gibson has been recognized by Palm Springs Life Magazine as One of the Top Lawyers of 2020, 2019. 2018, 2017, 2016, 2015, 2014, 2013, 2012 and 2011.  He’s been called “Brilliant” and “A Legend.”  If you want a top Palm Springs surrogacy lawyer on your side, call Sebastian Gibson today at (760) 776-1810.

Today, Palm Springs Surrogacy Lawyer Sebastian Gibson has been frequently asked to be interviewed on radio and TV, Sebastian Gibson has also written for the Los Angeles Daily Journal newspaper and the San Francisco Daily Journal and is the author of book published in 2012.

If you’re looking a lawyer for your surrogacy, consider Sebastian Gibson.  With offices in Palm Desert and Newport Beach, our lawyers can assist you with a surrogacy in the Coachella Valley, Orange County and anywhere in California.

Palm Springs Surrogacy Lawyer Sebastian Gibson can assist you if you haven’t been able to have a baby without medical technology or if you’re a single individual who has the desire to become a single parent.  At our law firm, confidentiality is paramount, as our firm represents celebrities, entertainers, models and sports figures without seeking any publicity for our firm’s representation of such international figures.

With offices in Palm Springs, Palm Desert and in Newport Beach in Orange County, We Can Assist You With Your Surrogacy in California.

Palm Springs Surrogacy Lawyer Sebastian Gibson will guide you through the whole process from start to finish – from your first dealings with an agency or a surrogate found by yourself to the creation of the embryo, the parental judgement, the birth of your child and the creation of important documents including the birth certificate, your child’s social security card and a passport for your newborn baby.

We can also assist in obtaining apostille documents that upon being certified at an embassy will provide an international client with their legal recognition in their home country. We will also coordinate matters with any agency you hire to match you with donors or surrogates and we’ll draft any necessary releases for your physicians.  Finally, we’ll manage the funds held in our trust account and release them only in accordance with the dates set forth in your agreements.

Few attorneys or lawyers on their surrogacy web sites will tell you how expensive the process is today to utilize reproductive technology, an egg donor, a surrogate and a fertility attorney to draft all of the necessary contracts (many of which must be created individually and which run between ten and twenty pages in length) and releases, the court pleadings to ensure that the birth certificate states the intended mother and father and not the name of the surrogate or the egg donor, to manage the funds and assist in obtaining the social security number and passport for the newborn baby or babies.

When one adds in the cost of the medical treatment (which most health plans don’t cover), fertility insurance, and the amounts that most surrogates and egg donors demand today, the total cost can easily range from $100,000 to $200,000, though some cost less than that even today.  Much depends on the quality of the doctors chosen, the experience of the lawyer and in many cases the health, intelligence, background and beauty that many couples look for in the egg  or sperm donor as well as in the surrogate.  Ethical issues must be faced by couples when they attempt to give birth to a child with specific characteristics.

Young women in college and models today are routinely being offered sums between $25,000 and $60,000 just to become an egg donor.  Surrogates routinely charge $20,000 or more and attorney fees and costs can easily exceed $15,000.00.  The cost of obtaining a parental judgment in order to require the hospital to place the name of the intended parents on the birth certificate can cost as much as $5,000.00 though it usually costs less.  The agency you choose to match you with an egg donor and surrogate, if necessary will have their set fees.  And everyone knows how much medical care costs today in the U.S.  With such costs always on the rise, the best way to estimate those costs are to look at an arm and a leg and multiply their worth by a factor of ten.

Couples who attempt the process without an agency and a surrogacy lawyer often fail to consider a number of issues which can be destructive to what should be a wonderful time in their lives.  They fail to ensure there is insurance coverage for medical consequences or illness during the infertility process and pregnancy and then forget to add the child to existing insurance coverage.  They often fail to obtain special insurance coverage for the surrogate at all, much less address issues such as fetal reduction or prenatal testing, or the addition of vitamins to the surrogate’s diet.

Call Palm Springs Surrogacy Lawyer Sebastian Gibson

Without the assistance of a lawyer, they fail to have the intended parents, the surrogate and her spouse and the egg or sperm donor tested completely for things such as HIV.  They fail to have them psychologically tested.  They fail to set up a trust account with a neutral third party or provide when payments will be made and what expenses will be reimbursed.  And without contracts, they fail to determine the intent of the parties, the parental rights of the parties, contact between the parties and the child, and the legal, health (including diet and abstinence of alcohol and drugs) and financial responsibilities of the parties.

A Palm Springs Surrogacy Lawyer can ensure that any parties who have donated genetic material or who have participated in the pregnancy have waived their rights in favor of the intended parents.  They can resolve issues such as inheritance issues, future contact and disclosures, and payment for the pain and suffering of the egg donor.  And an attorney can keep a wary eye on the lookout for conflicts of interest, misrepresentations and serve as a mediator between the party to resolve issues that naturally arise in the course of the entire process from the initial decision to have a baby until the baby has been born and the legal issues have all be resolved.

The good news is that if you’re still ready to proceed knowing that the costs of a surrogate, egg or sperm donation pregnancy is in most cases only for the well-heeled, you’ve chosen an attorney in the right state to assist you in enjoying motherhood that may have so far alluded you.  Courts in California have consistently paid heed to the intentions of the parties and respects the rights and obligations set forth in contracts between the intended parents and surrogates and between the intended parents and egg or sperm donors.

Only a handful of states in the U.S. recognize surrogacy contracts.  More states in America prohibit surrogacy contracts than those who allow them.  In the states that neither recognize them nor prohibit them, the law in those states is unclear due to contradictory legal opinions, confusing statutes or due to a patchwork of law in this field.  In many of these other states, the legal costs are higher due to the fact that the child born to a surrogate must then be adopted by the intended parents.

Whether you’re intending to use your own genetic material, donated eggs or wish to artificially inseminate a surrogate with whom you contract to carry the pregnancy to full term so you can enjoy being the parents of a child that is part yours or whose embryo came from genetic material from others, California courts will recognize the intentions of all the parties involved.

But those intentions must be set forth in contracts that provide for a great many contingencies and a court hearing is required for which an attorney is essential.  While it may be possible for you to find your own surrogate, and possibly even your own egg donor, the legal aspects of motherhood law are daunting for even a family lawyer with no experience in this new area of law.

In addition, state agencies in many states and even federal agencies will throw up road blocks that, without an attorney, can seem impossible to get around in the time allowed.  In California, for instance, the California Office of Vital Records will allow the intended parents to have their names placed on the birth certificate only if a Superior Court judgment has been obtained which names the intended parents as the legal parents of the child or children born in this manner.

To complicate matters, birth certificates must be registered with the office of Vital Records within ten days of the child’s birth.  If a judgment is not presented to the birth records department of the hospital at the time of birth, the birth certificate will not be filled out in accordance with the wishes of the intended parents.  There are a great number of other circumstances which further complicate this process, especially where two members of the same sex are the intended parents and for that reason, only an experienced attorney in this area should be retained by the intended parents.

With the courts in California being favorable to same sex couples and births be surrogacy and egg donation, couples from around the world and other restrictive states in the U.S. often choose California for their surrogate and egg donation births.  Surrogacy is still not legal in many foreign countries, even in Europe, and as a result may intended parents from foreign countries enter into surrogacy agreements with surrogates in California.

As with anything, there have been occasions where assisted reproductive technology agencies have been negligent and surrogates and egg donors have breached their contracts.  If you’ve had a problem with your agency, donor or surrogate and you need legal assistance, the law firm of surrogate attorney, Sebastian Gibson can help to resolve your dispute, and if it cannot be mediated, to litigate it in a California or Federal court.

Surrogacy contracts that are well-drafted address the intentions of all the parties as well as who will pay for the health insurance and bills of the surrogate, and the surrender of the newborn child to the intended parents.  They also cover issues including childcare costs, costs of maternity clothes and other issues, such as confidentiality, the disposition of additional embryos, control over medical decisions during the pregnancy, location of where the delivery of the baby will take place, presence of the intended parents during doctor visits and at the delivery of the baby, and liability for breaches or injuries, which if not addressed can cause a dispute between the parties.

A surrogacy contract, or as some would call it, a gestational carrier contract, is usually drafted and negotiated only once the surrogate and the intended parents have undergone medical testing and have been screened by an agency.  If there is one key issue that must be addressed clearly in these contracts, it’s the intent of all the parties as to who will be the intended parents of the child since California courts have held that in disputes, it’s the intent that controls the rights of the parties.

A donor contract is designed to cover the legal issues in connection with an ovum, sperm or embryo donation to the birth for the intended parents.  The contract addresses legal issues such as confidentiality, the intent of the parties, parental rights, future obligations and waivers of rights, medical expenses, responsibility for payment of expenses resulting from medical complications, and the mechanism for the payment of expenses or fees.

Palm Springs Surrogacy Lawyer Sebastian Gibson

A Palm Springs surrogacy lawyer also handles embryo donation contracts (for which there is no payment for the donation), co-parenting agreements, and agency contracts.  Same sex couples can choose between in-vitro fertilization to create an embryo or an embryo donated by another.  In either situation, a co-parenting agreement is recommended to address the rights, obligations and intentions of the parties.

While other courts require the intended parents to adopt a child before a surrogate’s rights have been terminated, this is not the case in California where the courts recognize the rights of the intended parents as set forth in the contracts between a surrogate or egg donor and the parties intending to become the parents of the child.

While some parents will seek to find a surrogate on their own, most use agencies who screen potential surrogates for good health records, an absence of drug usage and drug offenses, a negative health history for miscarriages, and a negative litigant history for pursuing parentage claims against intended parents.

A gestational surrogacy is most commonly achieved by means of having the eggs of an intended mother fertilized by the sperm of the intended father and then implanted into the gestational surrogate.  In gestational surrogacy, the surrogate is not biologically related to the resulting child or children.  Gestational surrogacy uses the procedure known as “in vitro fertilization.”

Traditional surrogacy, on the other hand, is where a surrogate mother bears a child for the intended parents using the surrogate’s own egg, thus making her biologically related to the resulting child or children.  Traditional surrogacy thus uses the procedure known as “artificial insemination.”

Today, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), over 1% of all infants born in the United States every year are conceived using assisted reproductive technology.  There are, however, some health issues that should be considered by parties seeking to conceive using this technology.

The CDC recognizes that assisted reproductive technology has been found to result in higher rates of multiple delivery, pre-term delivery and low birth-weight delivery.

The New Uniform Parentage Act In California

This new law which went into effect on January 1, 2013, has strengthened California surrogacy law, which was already considered to be the strongest in the country.  The Uniform Parentage Act was passed to protect all the parties to a surrogacy agreement from possible exploitation.

With the passage of this legislation, there is now further guidance as to how surrogacy agreements must be executed, when medical procedures can commence and importantly determines where parental establishment cases may be filed, which was the one area that was previously uncertain.

The new law provides that the intended parents and the surrogate must have separate attorneys and all gestational surrogacy agreements must be notarized and attested under penalty of perjury as to their compliance with the new law’s provisions.  Gestational surrogacy agreements executed in accordance with these provisions under the new law are presumed to be valid.

An agreement must also be executed and notarized before administration of medications used in assisted reproduction and embryo transfer procedures.

With regard to establishing the legal parent relationship between the intended parents and the resulting child, the new law permits the intended parents to establish parentage prior to the child’s birth, and importantly permits the parentage action to be filed in these locations:

The county where the child is anticipated to be born;

The county where the surrogate or intended parents reside;

The county where the surrogacy agreement was executed; or

The county where the medical procedures were performed.

A copy of the gestational surrogacy agreement must be filed with the court as part of the parentage action.  Court records are then sealed except for the intended parents, the surrogate, their attorneys, and the California Department of Social Services.

How Palm Springs Surrogacy Lawyer Sebastian Gibson Can Help

We can draft, negotiate or review contracts relating to:

Traditional Surrogacy

Gestational Surrogacy

Anonymous Surrogacy

Sperm Donation and Egg Donation Agreements

Parenting Plans and Visitation Rights

We can also prepare court papers and represent you in parentage legal proceedings to establish the parental rights of the parties.

Keep in mind, the different types of surrogacy arrangements that can be made.

Traditional Surrogacy

In traditional surrogacy arrangements, a surrogate is impregnated with either the intended father’s sperm or a sperm donation from an anonymous sperm donor.  The woman then becomes pregnant using her own egg and conceives a child, having previously agreed in writing to give the child to the intended parents.

Gestational Surrogacy

In a gestational surrogacy, on the other hand, the surrogate carries an embryo with which she has no biologic or genetic relationship.  The embryo may come from the egg of the intended mother and the sperm from the intended father, or they may come from donated eggs and sperm.  The embryo may also be a combination of a donation from one of the intended parents and that of a donor.  Again, the surrogate agrees to the pregnancy, to carrying the child to term, and on birth delivering the child to the intended parents.

Commercial Surrogacy in California

In commercial surrogacy, the surrogate is paid a fee for her services and not simply reimbursed for her expenses.  Commercial surrogacy is legal in California.  For carrying the child to term, and for the utilization of her egg, and any health consequences, the surrogate receives the agreed upon fee.  Because of the fact the egg is that of the surrogate in a traditional surrogacy, and the fact that the resulting child will thus retain characteristics of the surrogate, some surrogates command considerable fees for their service as a surrogate.  In other less surrogacy-friendly states and many other countries, commercial surrogacy is not legal.

Altruistic Surrogacy

In such an arrangement, the surrogate receives no fee for carrying and turning over the resulting child at birth but is usually reimbursed for her expenses, including any medical expenses.

Palm Springs Surrogacy Lawyer Sebastian Gibson

If you need assistance with your surrogacy, fertility or assisted reproductive birth in California or anywhere in the U.S., we invite you to call Sebastian Gibson.  As a surrogacy attorney in California, Palm Springs Surrogacy Lawyer Sebastian Gibson can assist you with all of your contracts and guide you through the process of your assisted reproductive birth and the court proceedings to establish parentage.  Call Palm Springs Surrogacy Lawyer Sebastian Gibson today at (760) 776-1810.

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