More families turn to surrogacy, navigating uneven state laws

Without a federal law, surrogacy in the U.S. is governed by a patchwork of state regulations that can determine everything from whether agreements are legally binding to who is recognized as a parent at birth.

Why it matters: More Americans are turning to surrogacy to build their families, making ethical, legal and cultural tensions harder to ignore.

• U.S. clinics reported more than 11,500 gestational carrier cycles in 2023 — nearly seven times as many as in 2004, when the American Society for Reproductive Medicine began tracking the data.

How it works: A surrogate carries a pregnancy for intended parents — typically via in vitro fertilization (IVF) with an embryo that uses a donor or the intended mother's egg.

• That's called gestational surrogacy, and the surrogate can be referred to as the gestational carrier.
• It's an option for people who want biological kids but can't — or can't safely — carry a pregnancy.

Major differences between state laws include:

• How a surrogate must be compensated (if not considered "altruistic").
• Who becomes the legal parents of a child born via...