BATON ROUGE, La. (AP) - Gov. Bobby Jindal again will decide whether Louisiana should have regulations governing surrogacy births, a year after he vetoed a similar bill.
Louisiana law has few regulations governing surrogacy, the arrangement in which a woman carries and gives birth to a baby for another couple. It isn’t illegal in the state, but contracts between a couple and its surrogate aren’t enforceable in court. The woman who gives birth is presumed to be the child’s mother.
A bill by Rep. Joe Lopinto, R-Metairie, spells out who can be a surrogate and what legal rights the parents, the surrogate and the child have.
The House gave final passage to the bill with a 72-7 vote Thursday, sending it to the governor’s desk.
Jindal vetoed last year’s bill because of moral and ethical objections raised by social conservatives and religious leaders. Lopinto has worked with the groups on compromise language that removed many of their objections, but the bill still faces opposition from the state’s Catholic bishops.
It wasn’t clear Thursday if the rewrite removed Jindal’s objections.
“We appreciate the authors of this legislation and the pro-life community for working together on the bill. We are pleased that it appears to be in a better posture, and we will review it thoroughly when it gets to our desk,” the Republican governor said in a statement.
Under the measure, surrogacy would be allowed only for man-woman married couples.
To be a surrogate, a woman would have to be at least 25 years old and no older than 35, have previously given birth, and undergo mental and physical evaluations. She would have to agree to relinquish all rights to the child she would be carrying for the married couple.
The surrogate wouldn’t be able to receive any compensation for carrying the child - except for medical expenses and mental health counseling services involving the pregnancy and birth, and travel costs, court costs and attorney fees related to the pregnancy.
Leading social conservatives removed their objections after Lopinto agreed to amendments that included a prohibition on direct compensation for the surrogate and a ban on surrogacy contracts requiring termination of a pregnancy because of a fetus’ possible disabilities, health conditions or gender.
The Louisiana Conference of Catholic Bishops remains opposed to the bill because the church opposes surrogacy and in-vitro fertilization as undermining the dignity of women, children and human reproduction and as causing the destruction of embryos.
___
Online:
House Bill 187 can be found at www.legis.la.gov
Please read our comment policy before commenting.