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Exploring the Michigan Family Protection Act 

Exploring the Michigan Family Protection Act 

What Attorneys Need to Know to Protect Families

Wednesday, October 23 | 10-11am & 1-2pm EST | Register here

Join the American Academy of Adoption & Assisted Reproduction Attorneys (AAAA) for a two-part training series on the Michigan Family Protection Act (MFPA). In the hour-long first session, we’ll explore the Assisted Reproduction provisions of the MFPA that impact parentage, offering insights that go beyond surrogacy to cover the full spectrum of family-building through ART. The second session will focus exclusively on surrogacy. To gain a comprehensive understanding of the MFPA, which is made up of nine individual bills, we strongly encourage participants to attend both sessions. 

Panelists include:

  • Polly Crozier – Director of Family Advocacy, GLBTQ Legal Advocates & Defenders
  • Angie Martell – Iglesia Martell Law Firm, PLLC and Colibri Institute of Social Justice
  • Megan Reynolds – Michigan Poverty Law Program, State Bar of Michigan Family Law Council
  • Beverly Cox – ART fellow, family law in the specialty of ART & surrogacy
  • Meryl Rosenberg – ART fellow, family law in the specialty of ART & surrogacy
  • Fabiana Quaini – International surrogacy specialist, ART fellow, family law in the specialty of ART & surrogacy

Blog

Michigan Acts to Protect LGBTQ+ Families With Updated Parentage Law

On April 1, Governor Gretchen Whitmer signed the Michigan Family Protection Act, a law that will ensure that children born through assisted reproduction and to LGBTQ+ parents have equal access to a secure legal relationship with their parents and the essential rights that accompany it. 

Governor Whitmer, sitting center at a table in a library in front of a crowd of seated individuals while professionally-dressed people stand behind her. Two women behind her to her right commemoratively hold up a piece of paper and lean into each other.
Governor Whitmer signs Michigan Family Protection Act

A patchwork of outdated laws across the country continues to leave LGBTQ+ parents and their children, and all families formed through assisted reproduction, vulnerable. Updating those laws to include LGBTQ+ families is a GLAD priority. With bills similar to the Michigan Family Protection Act pending in Massachusetts, Minnesota, and Pennsylvania, we hope Michigan will be an inspiration for other states to follow.

GLAD’s Director of Family Advocacy, Polly Crozier, worked closely with grassroots local advocates at the Michigan Fertility Alliance as well as attorney Courtney Joslin, who is Reporter for the Uniform Parentage Act (UPA) of 2017, to advance the Michigan Family Protection Act. The UPA is nonpartisan model legislation that ensures state parentage laws are constitutional, child-centered, and inclusive of all families no matter the gender or marital status of the parents or how the family is formed. Michigan is the first state in the Midwest and the 7th state in the country following Maine, Washington, Vermont, Rhode Island, Connecticut, and Colorado to comprehensively update its parentage laws to protect LGBTQ+ families based on the UPA 2017. 

“Michigan has shown us what strengthening families should look like in 2024: making it more accessible for all families, including LGBTQ+ families, to obtain the safety and stability that comes with legal parentage,” says Crozier. 

Last June, GLAD worked with the Movement Advancement Project, COLAGE, National Center for Lesbian Rights, and Family Equality to release a report on the state of parentage laws. Relationships at Risk: Why We Need to Update State Parentage Laws to Protect Children and Families detailed how the current patchwork of parentage laws across the country – many of which haven’t been updated in decades – leaves LGBTQ+ parents and their children vulnerable. 

Nearly 1 in 3 LGBTQ+ adults in the U.S. are raising children under the age of 18, many of them in states that still have outdated laws. This means that far too many children in LGBTQ+ families are potentially at risk, and that LGBTQ+ parents must navigate costly, time-intensive, and invasive legal obstacles to protect their families. 

Outdated parentage laws can mean children don’t have their parents when they need them most, like during a medical crisis, or can lead to a parent without legal security under their state’s law losing their connection to their child in circumstances such as the death of a legal parent or the end of the parents’ relationship.

Michigan’s new law also comes in the wake of aggressive efforts around the country to restrict Americans’ ability to make personal decisions about whether, when, and how to build their families, as well as efforts to undermine equal rights for LGBTQ+ people and families.

A woman in a suit jacket and red dress and a woman in a grey suit with her arm around the other woman stand next to each other, smiling.
Governor Whitmer and Director of Family
Advocacy Polly Crozier

Since the U.S. Supreme Court ruled in 2022 that there is no federal constitutional right to abortion, efforts have escalated to restrict not only abortion but contraception and access to family building like IVF. Earlier this year an unprecedented Alabama Supreme Court ruling effectively shut down IVF access in that state before lawmakers rushed in with a partial and problematic fix. 

The national outcry in response to the Alabama ruling made it clear that IVF and other forms of fertility treatment and assisted reproduction are important family building options for many people. Yet even in many states with strong protections for reproductive freedom – like Massachusetts where the Massachusetts Parentage Act is pending – children born through assisted reproduction still lack vital protections.

“In many states, parentage laws are decades out of date and haven’t kept pace with how families are formed,” says Joslin. “Critically, that leaves many children born through assisted reproduction – including IVF and surrogacy – without clear legal ties to their parents. When children lack legal relationships with their parents, they are extremely vulnerable; they may not be entitled to child support or to important government protections.”


“Amid efforts to restrict Americans’ reproductive freedom and roll back protections for LGBTQ+ people and their families,” adds Crozier, “the Michigan Family Protection Act is an inspiring example for other states where gaps in parentage laws continue to leave families vulnerable.”


This story was originally published in the Summer 2024 GLAD Briefs newsletter. Read more.

News

Michigan Updates Parentage Laws to Protect All Families

New law protecting Michigan families and access to family building provides an example for the nation amid efforts to restrict reproductive freedom

ROYAL OAK, Mich. (April 1, 2024) – The Michigan Fertility Alliance (MFA), one of the largest grassroots citizen-led groups of its kind in the country, today applauded Governor Gretchen Whitmer’s signing of the Michigan Family Protection Act (MFPA).

The MFPA updates Michigan law to ensure that all children, including children born through assisted reproduction and to LGBTQ+ families, will have equal access to a secure legal relationship with their parents and to critical rights such as health insurance, inheritance, social security, and decision-making about medical care and education that flow from that relationship. The law also removes Michigan’s criminal ban on surrogacy contracts and provides legal safeguards for family building through surrogacy to protect all involved – parents, children, and surrogates.

“This is an incredible victory for Michigan families,” said Stephanie Jones, Executive Director of the Michigan Fertility Alliance. “Hundreds of thousands of Michiganders who want children rely on assisted reproduction to build their families. Whether straight, LGBTQ+, cancer survivors, coupled or not, Michiganders needed a clear law in place to protect all children and parents as well as those who help parents grow their families as surrogates. We’re grateful to Governor Whitmer, legislative champion Representative Steckloff, and all our legislators who heard our stories and recognized the need to support and protect children, families, and access to family-building in Michigan.”

The MFA served as a lead voice for families while the Michigan House and Senate considered and passed the package of bills collectively known as the Michigan Family Protection Act. During the legislative process, several members of the MFA, including parents, surrogates, and doctors, alongside nationally known experts in parentage and family law across the country, told lawmakers their personal and professional stories of how Michigan’s outdated statutes have adversely affected children. 

“This family-focused law came together thanks to the grit and unwavering determination of our grassroots group of parents and other citizens that make up the Michigan Fertility Alliance with the support of family, parenting, reproductive equity, and LGBTQ+ advocates and experts,” added Jones. “Families take many forms – and we’re so glad we came together and learned from one another to create a law that will make having children a loving reality for everyone.”

This timely legislation also makes Michigan an example to other states for updating outdated parentage and family-building laws. It comes in the wake of aggressive efforts around the country to restrict Americans’ ability to make personal decisions about whether, when, and how to build their families, as well as efforts to undermine equal rights for LGBTQ+ people and families.

Since the U.S. Supreme Court ruled in 2022 that there is no federal constitutional right to abortion, efforts have escalated to restrict not only abortion but contraception and access to family building like IVF, surrogacy, and other forms of assisted reproduction. Michigan is the first state to update its parentage laws after an unprecedented Alabama Supreme Court ruling effectively shut down IVF access in that state. 

“The nationwide outcry against the Alabama ruling showed how crucial IVF and other forms of assisted reproduction are to many people’s family building process,” said Courtney Joslin, Professor at U.C. Davis School of Law and Reporter for the Uniform Parentage Act of 2017, upon which the Michigan Family Protection Act is based. “Yet in many states, parentage laws are decades out of date and haven’t kept pace with how families are formed. Critically, that leaves many children born through assisted reproduction – including IVF and surrogacy – without clear legal ties to their parents. When children lack legal relationships with their parents, they are extremely vulnerable; they may not be entitled to child support or to important government protections.”

“Michigan has shown us what strengthening families should look like in 2024: making it more possible for people to fulfill their dreams of building a family and more accessible for all families, including LGBTQ+ families, to obtain the safety and stability that comes with legal parentage,” said Polly Crozier, Director of Family Advocacy at GLBTQ Legal Advocates & Defenders (GLAD). “Amid efforts to restrict Americans’ reproductive freedom and roll back protections for LGBTQ+ people and their families, the Michigan Family Protection Act is an inspiring example for other states where gaps in parentage laws leave families vulnerable.”

Protecting Michigan Families

Update: On April 1, 2024, Governor Gretchen Whitmer signed the Michigan Family Protection Act into law!

Michigan’s parentage laws are stuck in the Dark Ages, leaving too many children vulnerable without a secure tie to their parents. Michiganders need a clear pathway to secure parent-child relationships for those who rely on fertility treatment to have children.

The Michigan Family Protection Act (HB 5207-5215/SB 0728) will:

  • Provide clear parentage laws to create stability for all children
  • Recognize surrogate contracts, which are currently banned in Michigan
  • Allow fair and transparent compensation for surrogates
  • Offer legal safeguards and administrative guidelines for children and parents, and surrogates

Especially as the Alabama Supreme Court ruling signals a new level of threat to parents’ rights, states like Michigan need to take action now to protect access to family-building, now matter how children are born.

Pueblo v. Haas

Carrie Pueblo and Rachel Haas—partners in a committed same-sex relationship—chose to have a child together using assisted insemination, with Ms. Haas carrying the child. When their child was born in November 2008, same-sex marriages were not legal in their home state of Michigan. The relationship between Ms. Pueblo and Ms. Haas ended before same-sex marriage was legalized.

After their separation, Ms. Haas denied Ms. Pueblo all contact with the child she had raised since birth.

Ms. Pueblo filed suit in family court seeking shared custody and parenting time, but both the trial court and Michigan Court of Appeals held that because she is not the child’s biological mother, she did not have standing. This left Ms. Pueblo as a legal stranger to her own child. The case is now at the Michigan Supreme Court.

When parents separate, children in families created by same-sex couples, just like children in families created by different-sex couples, need legal protections that recognize the parents’ and children’s fundamental rights in their relationship. Custody and parenting time decisions for the children of same-sex couples should be made based on the best interests of the child, just as they are for the children of different-sex couples.

Some of the most important civil rights of LGBTQ people in Michigan are at stake in this case: the rights to become parents, to form families, to raise children, and to maintain relationships with those children. The Court should act to protect those rights, and the judgment of the Court of Appeals should be reversed.

GLAD joined an amicus brief with the ACLU of Michigan, Lambda Legal Defense & Education Fund, LGBTQA Law Section of the State Bar of Michigan, Affirmations LGBTQ+ Community Center, and the National Center for Lesbian Rights.

Update:

On July 24, 2023, the Michigan Supreme Court reversed the appellate ruling and sent the case back to the trial court, saying that Ms. Pueblo has a right to make the case that she is a parent to their child. Read more from NBC News.

McIntyre v. Whitmer

Defending a Michigan National Guard Specialist and Army veteran who is facing involuntary discharge because she is transgender.

District Court for the Western District of Michigan
Filed October 30, 2020

Blaire McIntyre
Michigan National Guard Specialist Blaire McIntyre

On October 30, 2020, GLAD and the National Center for Lesbian Rights (NCLR) filed a new challenge to the transgender military ban on behalf of Michigan Army National Guard Specialist Blaire McIntyre.

Specialist McIntrye has served as a dedicated and successful member of the Michigan Army National Guard since April 2015 and previously served in the active duty Army where she deployed to Afghanistan. She now faces discharge after disclosing her transgender status.

Specialist McIntrye also works as a uniformed civilian National Guard employee specializing in armament. Because of her position as a dual status technician, discharge from the National Guard would also result in the loss of her civilian position.

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