Paid Surrogacy Is No Longer Illegal In Michigan, Family Protection Act Signed

The law about surrogacy in Michigan changed on Monday. Surrogacy contracts or paid surrogacy are now allowed in Michigan. CNN reported that Michigan has become the last state to "decriminalize" paid surrogacy. Governor Gretchen Whitmer signed a package of bills intended to protect families using surrogacy and in vitro fertilization (IVF).

Some people make welcoming a child into the world one of their top priorities. If a woman is unable to carry a pregnancy or become pregnant, surrogacy is an option. "Also called a surrogate, a gestational carrier is a woman who carries and delivers a child for a couple or individual," said Yale Medicine.

Surrogate mothers are impregnated through the use of IVF. According to Yale Medicine, in this process, doctors create an embryo by fertilizing eggs from the intended mother or an egg donor with sperm from the intended father or a sperm donor.

The legal issues of surrogacy are under the jurisdiction of each state, and the legal situation varies greatly from one state to another. Surrogacy 365 reports that the states that allow surrogacy and where contracts are considered legal are California, Illinois, Arkansas, Maryland, Utah, and now Michigan among others.

"Some states have written legislation on the Surrogacy Act, while others have developed common law regimes to deal with surrogacy problems," they said. They added, "Some states facilitate surrogate pregnancy and the drafting of surrogate pregnancy contracts, others simply refuse to legislate, and some others penalize commercial surrogacy."

They also mentioned that in the states with a Surrogacy Law, commercial or "altruistic surrogacy" contracts can be made, and procedures are facilitated so that the ordering parents or parents of intention are recognized as the child's legal parents. Other states relatively allow surrogacy, but they only offer support to married heterosexual couples.

Surrogacy itself isn’t illegal in Michigan, but contracted paid surrogacy was banned. Taking part in such a surrogacy contract resulted in a misdemeanor charge for participating parties in Michigan, punishable by up to one year in jail and a $10,000 fine. Organizing or assisting such an illegal contract is a felony punishable by up to five years in prison and a $50,000 fine, as reported by Michigan Advance.

CBS News reported that Tammy Myers fought to allow surrogacy contracts in Michigan.  In 2015, Tammy Myers from Grand Rapids was diagnosed with breast cancer around the time she and her husband, Jordan, were looking to conceive a second child. Through a surrogate, they had twins, but because of the law at the time, the Myers had to go to court to adopt their biological children.

On Monday, Governor Gretchen Whitmer signed the Michigan Family Protection Act, aimed at protecting families who use IVF and ensuring LGBTQ+ parents are treated equally. The new laws protect the biological parents, the surrogate, and the child. The governor's office said the new law officially takes effect 90 days after the Legislature adjourns.

According to the Michigan Fertility Alliance, Over 300,000 Michiganders who want to have children can’t. One in six Michigan couples has trouble conceiving or carrying a pregnancy to term.

For many parents, naming a child can become a stressful process. Perhaps, it's the pressure of giving a tiny human a name they will have for their entire life. Some families name their kids after a family member, someone famous, fictional characters, or sometimes something that reminds them of a sweet memory. Parents have the right to choose a child's name. However, that responsibility comes with a few restrictions.

Some states have naming laws and restrictions that define whether new parents are allowed to choose a certain name for their baby or not. According to USBirthCertificates.com, a vital records application preparation assistance service, certain states have other kinds of naming restrictions in place to protect children. This includes banning the use of obscenity in names.

Several states limit the number of characters that can be used in a name because of official birth records software used in the U.S. Apparently, in Nebraska first, middle and last names must be less than 100 characters total.

While other states go as far as banning the use of numerical digits or emojis. For example, Massachusetts only allow letters found on the standard English keyboard to be used in baby names. There are also states who prohibit naming children after people who have committed heinous crimes. We don't know why anyone would, but this means you can’t name your child "Adolf Hitler."

Many of the common naming restrictions include derogatory terms, obscenity, offensive names, numbers, and certain characters like asterisks. However, there are celebrities like Grimes and Elon Musk who didn’t let their states restrictions stop them from naming their kids Exa Dark Sideræl referred to as "Y" and  X Æ A-XII, nicknamed "X."

If you are in the "naming" process, you should become familiar with the restrictions set in place by each state to avoid birth certificate surprises.

In 2013, a child support magistrate in East Tennessee ruled that a 7-month-old boy named Messiah must have his name changed to Martin. "The word 'Messiah' is a title, and it’s a title that has only been earned by one person, and that one person is Jesus Christ," said  Magistrate Lu Ann Ballew.

In 2009, New Jersey parents Heath and Deborah Campbell were taken into state custody after authorities got involved in a cake incident. A bakery refused to decorate a cake with the words "Happy Birthday Adolf Hitler." The Campbell’s gave their three children Nazi-inspired names including Adolf Hitler . Though the state said that their names were not the reason, it's been reported that the parents didn't believe them.

In 2018, Elizabeth Handy and Bilal Walk of Georgia sued their home state after officials refused to let them name their daughter ZalyKha Graceful Lorraina Allah. The issue was Allah, the two-year-old girl's last name. Georgia law requires that children bear the last name of at least one of their parents. The parents won the case, with the help of lawyers from the ACLU.

In 1976, the North Dakota Supreme Court ruled that short-order cook and high school teacher Michael Herbert Dengler could not change his name to "1069."

In December 1999, Robert William Handley of Ohio filed a petition to change his name to Santa Robert Claus. Judge Lawrence Belskis denied his petition saying that "the public has a proprietary interest, a proprietary right in the identity of Santa Claus, both in the name and the persona."

A 1984 ruling from the California Courts of Appeal denied a request from Thomas Boyd Ritchie III to change his name to the Roman numeral "III," pronounced "Three." The court said that, "a change to a roman numeral did not constitute a name change within the meaning of the law and that the new 'name' used by appellant was inherently confusing."