Avoid These Mistakes With Embryo Donation
If you are hoping to start a family, embryo donation may be one path you are looking into. When a person chooses to donate their embryo, that is giving another family the chance to have the family they have always dreamed of. While this can be a very beautiful thing, it can also be very complicated legally. It is best in this situation to make sure you have legal assistance so that you understand what your rights are as the parents and what kind of rights the donor may want or have.
What to Avoid With Embryo Donation
- You do not have an agreement with the donor. If you are entering into this process, you will want to have a donor agreement. This agreement establishes what both parties are hoping to get out of the donation and what each party’s obligations are. Similar to adoption, this agreement will establish things like whether the donor is allowed to contact the child at any point in the future and what the rules surrounding that contact would be.
- You rely too heavily on the medical consent forms. When you go through the process of embryo donation, you will sign medical consent forms. Similar to other medical procedures, these forms will tell you the different possible outcomes that could happen and what kinds of risks there are. That said, when establishing parental rights, you will not want to rely on the medical consent forms.
- You cannot pay someone for their embryos. When you are looking to start your family, you cannot pay someone for their embryos. Instead, while there is a certain amount of compensation the donor may get (medical fees, risks) you want to avoid saying you would like to pay someone for their embryos.
- You should plan out where the child will be born. There are certain states that make embryo-donation birth more complex and do not recognize the parental rights of the birth mother vs. the donation mother. This situation, in particular, can become difficult and complex and you want to make sure you are working with a skilled attorney who understands the laws regarding your rights to be the child’s parents and where the child should be born.