Assisted Reproduction

Legal recognition of the parent-child relationship (“parentage”) is important for many reasons, including health care and school related decisions to economic security, and much more. But for both LGBTQ and non-LGBTQ people alike, families are made in many different ways, and so there need to be multiple ways for the parent-child relationship to be legally secured. These maps illustrate some of the pathways to parental recognition that are especially important for LGBTQ families.

This map shows the states in which all intended parents, regardless of marital status, can be recognized as legal parents if they consent to assisted reproduction with the intent to parent the child. For example, when a woman consents to have a child with her wife through donor insemination, the non-gestational, non-genetic mother is also a legal parent (just as a woman’s husband would be a legal parent of a child they have using donor insemination, even though he is not the genetic father). These laws are often referred to as assisted reproduction statutes or intended parent provisions. While most states have statutes specifically governing the parentage of children born through assisted reproduction, most of these statutes only apply to married couples. This map shows states that have expanded assisted reproduction statutes to apply regardless of the marital status of the intended parents.  (Note: this map does not refer to laws governing surrogacy.)