Democrats haven’t given up on striking a deal to legalize gestational surrogacy in New York before the state budget is due next Tuesday, making it one of several issues that appear to still be on the table during closed-door negotiations on the spending plan.
State Sen. Brad Hoylman, D-Manhattan, said in an interview to air on New York NOW this weekend that lawmakers are still discussing the issue with Gov. Andrew Cuomo.
“Surrogacy is also on the table, I’m happy to say, still at this point,” Hoylman said. “Granted sometimes this table is lopsided and things slide off, but as I know it today it’s still being discussed with the Assembly and Senate leadership, and the governor.”
Gestational surrogacy would allow couples, or individuals, who can't physically conceive a child to pay a woman to carry a fertilized egg. The practice has been targeted toward same-sex couples and people who aren't able to have children on their own.
Lawmakers appeared close to legalizing surrogacy last year after Democrats took control of the state Senate, giving them a majority in both chambers of the state Legislature. But Democrats in the state Assembly stopped the measure from coming to a vote in June.
Many Democrats in the lower chamber have expressed concerns that the legislation wouldn’t do enough to protect women who agree to act as surrogates, both legally and in terms of their health. They’ve labeled it as a commercialization of women’s bodies.
Hoylman pushed back on those arguments, saying the legislation, as written, would provide the strongest protections for women acting as surrogates in the country.
“It’ll create this clear, legal guidance regarding a child’s parentage before they’re born and I think create really much needed protection,” Hoylman said.
“In fact, we will have the strongest protections of surrogates in the entire world through our Surrogate’s Bill of Rights. It ensures a surrogate can make her own medical decisions, choose her own doctor, and have access to multiple protections through the legislation,” he continued.
Hoylman has a personal stake in the issue. He and his husband used a surrogate to have children, but in California, where the practice is legal. Other states, he said, haven’t banned the option, but offer no legal protections for surrogates and intended parents.
That means residents from New York who pay a surrogate in one of those states to carry their child may run into legal problems down the road, he said.
“New Yorkers are going there and making themselves vulnerable, as well as, I would argue, causing potential harm to women who act as surrogates and donors, and every other party to these types of arrangements,” Hoylman said.
Democrats in the Senate have largely coalesced around his legislation, but the measure has met resistance in the Assembly. Assembly Speaker Carl Heastie, D-Bronx, said last year that members in his chamber couldn’t reach an agreement on the issue.
“We must ensure that the health and welfare of women who enter into these arrangements are protected, and that reproductive surrogacy does not become commercialized,” Heastie said at the time.
The issue has also been a top priority for Cuomo, who expects to deal with it in the state budget. That spending plan is due on Tuesday, and with lawmakers absent from Albany amid the COVID-19 pandemic, negotiations have been strained.
It's also possible that this will be the only chance, this year, for lawmakers to legalize the option. It's unclear whether they'll return to Albany after they're expected to approve the state budget next week. Lawmakers have openly wondered whether they'll be back later in the year, after the COVID-19 crisis has faltered.
Cuomo’s said in recent days that some issues may fall out of the state budget if they haven’t been thought through. But for now, according to Hoylman, surrogacy isn’t on that list.