A Republican state senator from Indianapolis said she fears Indiana has become a hub for adoptions arising from surrogate births involving out-of-state residents.No figures are available, because adoption filings are confidential by law. But Sen. Patricia L. Miller said she wants to halt the practice.
She has submitted a bill that would limit who could be paid to arrange adoptions or child placements to licensed attorneys, child welfare workers and licensed child-placing agencies.
The version of Senate Bill 199 she introduced would not affect Monrovia-based Surrogate Mothers Inc., which does the most advertising for clients, surrogates and egg donors. An attorney, Steven C. Litz of Morgan County, runs that company.
Miller said this past week that she plans to amend her bill to bar facilitation of adoptions by unregulated firms, which would include Surrogate Mothers. Violating such a law would be a misdemeanor.
Litz declined to talk to The Indianapolis Star. He and his company handle adoptions arising from births to women who are paid to act as surrogates for out-of-state singles and couples seeking newborns.
Indiana regulates surrogacy and adoption more loosely than some other states.
Some states prohibit paid surrogacy agreements. Indiana law doesn’t allow the enforcement of surrogacy contracts in child-custody disputes. But state law does not prohibit surrogate mothers from Indiana or elsewhere from placing infants for adoption in Indiana to out-of-state residents if the babies can be shown to be hard to place.
Unlike Indiana, at least 16 states prohibit out-of-state residents from adopting children. Other states, including New York, strongly discourage such adoptions. Five states permit them in cases in which state-licensed agencies are used.
“They’re coming into Indiana because we’re not addressing the issue,” Miller said. “I think the General Assembly will want to try to deal with this.”
An Indiana Senate committee will take up Miller’s bill next month. Senate Judiciary Chairman Richard D. Bray, R-Martinsville, said he shares Miller’s concerns and would work with Miller to examine, and possibly curb, Indiana courts’ approval of interstate adoptions arising from surrogate births.
At the same hearing in February, Bray said, the Judiciary Committee will consider Senate Bill 151, authored by Sen. Connie Lawson, R-Danville.
Her legislation would update Indiana’s version of the Interstate Compact on the Placement of Children, a contract among states requiring approval from child welfare officials in both states before children involved in public or private adoptions can be sent to live across state lines.
A national group updated and strengthened the model law in 2006, adding new remedies for violations. More than two-thirds of states must adopt the new compact before it can take effect.