The South Dakota House of Representatives is passing a ban on commercial surrogacy.
But an amendment to the bill directs the legislature to study the industry over the summer.
If passed, the bill voids commercial surrogacy contracts after July first of this year. It does not ban altruistic surrogacy.
Elizabeth Waletich attended the debate on the house floor in the state capitol. She’s the mother of a daughter through surrogacy. She says the commercial and consensual the relationship between her family and the carrier gave her a daughter.
“It was very important to not only me and my husband to use legal representation, as well as agency input, so that we could go forward having the best outcome for our gestational carrier, but for my husband and I, and absolutely for the child that we’ve been praying for. Currently, because bill 1096 is going into effect July 1st of this year, 2020, I currently have one baby who I currently don’t know how to give life to.”
If passed, Republican Representative Jon Hansen says families seeking a surrogacy arrangement can still use an altruistic surrogate. He says the custody of human beings should never be determined by a contract.
“In the bill, we intentionally aren’t discussing altruistic surrogacy, we’re only talking about commercial surrogacy,” Hansen says. “Those individuals who would like to go through with an altruistic surrogacy—the adoption code is open to those people today. That’s a regulatory structure that’s long been in place in South Dakota. They should be able to use our adoption code to facilitate that agreement.”
Hansen says he’s open to the legislature discussing the topic over the summer.
Dakota Surrogacy is a commercial surrogacy group out of Sioux Falls. They say they want to see the industry regulated and hope to provide input on that regulation. The bill now moves to the Senate.
