Cases prove it’s legal for any one from any where to do any kind of surrogacy, regardless of their home state’s laws.

Application of Court of Appeals adoption ruling establishes non-residents’ right to complete legal surrogacy in Maryland.

It’s a common misconception that to do a surrogacy legally you must live in a state where surrogacy is legal. That’s why couples and individuals living in states or nations where surrogacy is either not legal, or is so heavily regulated as to be impossible, may be surprised to learn that surrogacy is in fact a completely legal option for them regardless of the laws where they live. Taking advantage of Maryland’s “surrogacy friendly” laws, an important ruling in a successful appeal brought by our firm, and the “full faith and credit” clause of the U.S. Constitution, Shrybman Law Offices, P.C., has helped couples or singles in many different situations to build their families legally through any type of surrogacy — even when that option is not legal or easily accomplished in their home state.

In just the past few years, we have successfully completed dozens of surrogacies for clients from across the country, such as:

• Couples from Florida, Connecticut, Virginia, New Jersey, and Michigan, for whom surrogates were artificially inseminated with the husbands’ sperm and gave birth to babies who were then adopted by the intended mothers.
• Couples from South Carolina and Pennsylvania, who obtained pre-birth declarations of parentage for babies born for them by surrogates from implanted embryos created from the couples’ own sperm and eggs.
• Couples from New York and Virginia who each received pre-birth declarations of parentage for their children conceived through in-vitro fertilization that combined the husband’s sperm with eggs from anonymous or known donors, with the embryo implanted in the surrogate.
• A couple from South Carolina who successfully completed a surrogacy where eggs from the surrogate were retrieved from her, combined in vitro with the husband’s sperm, and the embryo transferred back to the surrogate, who gestated and delivered the resulting baby.
• Couples from North Carolina, West Virginia, and Pennsylvania for whom the surrogates were artificially inseminated by their husbands using home insemination kits and the intended father’s sperm.
• Gay couples from California, Washington, D.C., Virginia, Florida and Indiana, with surrogates artificially inseminated by sperm from one of the partners and the resulting baby adopted by the other.
• Gay couples from Washington, D.C., New Jersey, and New York whose surrogates were implanted with embryos created from one partner’s sperm and a donated egg.
• Single men from New Jersey and Massachusetts who were declared the sole legal parents of babies born for them by surrogates artificially inseminated with their sperm, and with the surrogates’ names subsequently removed from the birth certificates.

All of these, of course, are in addition to the surrogacies we have completed for Maryland residents, with surrogates from either here or other states.

Adoption Ruling Provides Non-Residents’ Access to Maryland Courts
The legal foundation for this track record of successful surrogacies began to take shape in 1988 when Shrybman Law Offices successfully appealed a Maryland County Circuit Court’s refusal to grant our clients a decree of adoption. The child was born to a Maryland couple who had voluntarily placed their baby for adoption with our clients. We had expected the final hearing to be a simple and routine matter. To our surprise the judge denied the adoption and immediately dismissed the case, stating the adoptive parents’ then-current Virginia residency as his reason. The Maryland Court of Appeals reversed the Circuit Court, granting the adoption and making our clients the child’s legal parents. More importantly, the Court specifically found that the birth parents’ Maryland residency provided jurisdiction for Maryland courts to handle the adoption regardless of the current residency of the adoptive parents.

Although it was not readily apparent at that time, Shrybman Law Offices’ advocacy in that case had helped to establish a new legal principle in Maryland — one that would prove especially beneficial not only for future out-of-state adoptive parents but also for those from the many states which were in the process of banning or severely restricting the growing practice of surrogacy.

Because surrogacy is legal in Maryland and because surrogacy typically ends with an adoption or legal declaration of parentage for one or both of the intended parents, Shrybman Law Offices soon began to work with couples and singles looking for relief from their home states’ surrogacy-unfriendly laws. We developed a process for identifying and locating Maryland-resident surrogate candidates from whom intended parents living anywhere could select a surrogate to help them build their family. Applying the principle established in our 1988 adoption case, the surrogate’s Maryland residency would allow intended parents from other states to complete their case in a Maryland Court in accordance with Maryland’s very surrogacy “friendly” laws.

Constitution Assures Parents’ Recognition When they Return Home
But what happens when the new parents take their child home to their surrogacy unfriendly state? Nothing. The laws of their home state have no bearing whatsoever. First, under the U.S. Constitution, anyone is free to do whatever is legal in a state they travel to, even if it is illegal in the state where they live. Surrogacy is legal in Maryland, so anyone may contract with a surrogate who resides in Maryland and become the legal parents of a child through surrogacy. Then, applying the “full faith and credit” clause of the U.S. Constitution, the newly legal parents take their child home, where their state must recognize Maryland’s declaration of their parenthood even if surrogacy is illegal there.

As clarified and confirmed by the experience of Shrybman Law Offices clients, beginning with that seemingly unrelated 1988 Court of Appeals adoption case, Maryland today offers a friendly legal environment for all types of intended parents and all types of surrogacies, for surrogate candidates eagerly seeking to work with couples and individuals, with judges pleased to declare intended parents to be legal parents, and with a Division of Vital Records ready to issue new official birth certificates reflecting that new parentage.

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