What does the Texas abortion law mean for Texas surrogates and intended parents?

Learn the answer to this week's user-submitted question about surrogacy in this week's installment of Ask a Surrogacy Expert! Have a question about surrogacy that you'd like answered? Submit it at https://www.brightfuturesfamilies.com/ask

Hey, everyone, this is Jennifer White, CEO of Bright Futures Families, with this week's question, one that I'm going to have a little bit of difficulty answering, I can admit. The question is: What does the Texas abortion law have to do with what does it mean for intended parents and gestational carriers?

And I will be fully transparent as to when I'm answering this, which is in June of 2024, because I want to make sure if any answers I give, if they post it and it's out of date at that point in time that I want to be really clear about, the time frame when I'm answering this is that right now, honestly, to us as an agency, we feel like matching can still go on as usual. Matching or termination was always a matching point and criteria that we always discussed in depth with all parties. And we still want to make sure that everybody is in alignment if the worst were to happen. Because quite honestly, a gestational carrier, as a woman, has the constitutional right to travel to receive any health care that she should need. So in our mind's eye, it adds a complication, of course, but it does not change the fact that those underlying questions were always extraordinarily important. They still are for every single match, equally as important as they ever were before. It just bears a little bit extra conversation with everybody on both sides about risk and ability to travel and things like that. So I hope that helps.