Hope. Activism. Action.

Grassroots activism helping families grow

Michigan Fertility Alliance (MFA) is a grassroots citizens-led organization advocating for families who need assisted reproduction and surrogacy to start or grow. MFA advocates for issues relating to infertility, surrogacy, and the protection of parentage rights for children born via assisted reproduction. The Michigan Family Protection Act is a result of MFA's policy and advocacy work.

MFA and a coalition of national experts and stakeholders helped craft and introduce the Michigan Family Protection Act (HB 5207-5215) in October 2023, which passed in the Michigan House. On March 19, 2024, the MFPA passed the Senate, and on April 1st, Gov. Gretchen Whitmer signed the Act into law.  

The Purpose of the Michigan Family Protection Act: 

Protecting Michigan’s Children and Parents

Over 300,000 Michiganders who want to have children can’t. The inability to conceive a child naturally affects citizens physically, emotionally and financially. It is crippling for individuals and families whose only option is seeking fertility treatment to grow a family.

Michigan’s parentage laws have been in the dark ages, and that’s why the legislature is passing new legislation to protect children and families. 

The Michigan Fertility Alliance’s legislation, the Michigan Family Protection Act (MFPA), will provide legal clarity and protections for children, parents, and those acting as surrogates. A secure parent-child legal relationship is core to a child’s well-being because many rights, such as medical care, education, social security and others, flow from this legal status. Michigan parents and families of all kinds should not have to adopt their own children, and children should not be in legal jeopardy while their parents fight for their legal custody. This legislation changes that.

The new law creates the foundation for parentage by securing a legal tie between all Michigan children and parents:

• For Children: A clear path will be charted for securing the legal rights of children conceived through fertility treatment. 

• For Parents: Parents, including both married and unmarried couples, LGBTQ+ individuals, and single parents who rely on fertility treatments to build their families, will be able to do so with a clear legal pathway.

• For Surrogates: The bill establishes a process for contracts that secure and protect everyone, including the child, carrier, and parents.

The Michigan Fertility Alliance and its members have now overhauled the outdated 1988 Law that denied fundamental parentage rights for families created through fertility treatment. 

To learn more, please visit our Get Involved page. You can also stay updated by reading our blog, signing up for our newsletter, and following us on social media.

Surrogacy in Michigan, so you know:

Surrogacy in Michigan has experienced unique challenges due to the 1988 Surrogate Parenting Act, and has been an outlier in regards to surrogacy in the United States. We sought to inform, educate, and empower Michiganders looking to expand their families through surrogacy to pass this law and make it so: 

—Surrogacy contracts are now recognized in Michigan. [Michigan was only one of only two states in the U.S. where contracts were not recognized.] Contracts drawn up between the intended parents and gestational carrier, each with their own attorney, were not legally recognized in Michigan courts and did not provide contractual protection to either party or the child.

—A loophole in the 1988 law allows for “altruistic” or non-compensated surrogacy but does not provide legal language for securing the rights of parents or contractual legal protection. The law assumed that those who are unable to carry a pregnancy have access to a woman willing to act as their gestational carrier without compensation and will be medically and psychologically approved to do so.

—Michigan was the first state in the U.S. to make participating in a compensated surrogacy contract illegal. It has been the only state in the U.S. where those participating in a compensated surrogacy contract could face hefty fines and jail time.

—Those who used a non-compensated carrier in Michigan could be forced to adopt their biological children because their pre-birth rights to their children are being denied. While judges have awarded parentage rights to intended parents, that outcome was not guaranteed.

—That is why the MFA actively advocated for inclusive pro-family surrogacy legislation. The new law legally recognizes a surrogacy contract, provides a clear pathway to legal parentage rights to a child born via surrogacy, and allows for payment of consideration and reasonable expenses.

Our mission has been to inform, educate, and work towards the day when all Michiganders have access to surrogacy as a treatment option for their infertility, and we are thankful that the legislature and the Governor have passed this new law.

Please visit our MI Surrogacy FAQs page to learn more about surrogacy in Michigan.