Surrogacy in the United States is often described as “unregulated,” and in a narrow sense that’s true: there is no licensing board for surrogacy, and few statutes dictate who may become an intended parent. But that description misses how the process is actually protected in practice. The real safeguards aren’t government rules — they’re the professional standards that reputable agencies and attorneys apply on every journey. When those standards are followed, they work. The danger comes when they’re bypassed.
I was recently quoted by the Los Angeles Times on exactly this point, in connection with a surrogacy case that has drawn significant public attention. Rather than comment on that matter, I want to use the occasion to explain what the safeguards are, how they function, and why intended parents and gestational carriers should insist on them.
Due diligence is the first line of defense
Reputable surrogacy firms conduct background checks on prospective intended parents and surrogates before a journey begins. This isn’t bureaucratic box-checking. It’s how the industry screens for histories that bear directly on a child’s safety and on the suitability of the arrangement. The vetting exists precisely so that the people entering into one of the most significant relationships imaginable — carrying and placing a child — do so with informed confidence about who they’re working with.
When an arrangement avoids that scrutiny, the protection disappears. The absence of a formal legal requirement is exactly why the professional standard matters so much: it is often the only check in place.
Independent legal representation is not optional
In a properly structured surrogacy, the gestational carrier and the intended parents each have their own independent attorney. These advocates negotiate the gestational carrier agreement between the parties — a contract that addresses parentage, medical decision-making, compensation, risk, and contingencies. The requirement that each side have separate counsel isn’t a formality. It ensures no one is signing a life-altering agreement without someone whose sole duty is to protect their interests.
An arrangement where one party controls both sides, or where a carrier has no genuine independent advocate, is missing a structural protection that exists for good reason. The independence is the safeguard.
Why this protects the whole field
These standards don’t only protect the individuals in a given journey. They protect the integrity of surrogacy itself. The overwhelming majority of surrogacy arrangements are carried out responsibly, by families and carriers acting in good faith with professional guidance. When a case goes wrong because the safeguards were circumvented, it casts a shadow over an entire field built on care, rigorous screening, and trust.
That’s the real lesson for anyone considering surrogacy: the protections are only as good as your insistence on them. Choosing an established agency, insisting on independent counsel, and declining to cut corners isn’t excess caution — it’s the entire point.
Where medicine and law meet
Surrogacy sits at the intersection of medical procedure and legal relationship, and the two have to be coordinated deliberately. A background that bridges both — in my case, medical training that predates my legal practice — helps in recognizing where a clinical step and a legal protection need to line up, and where families might otherwise assume one has covered the other. The safeguards work best when the medical and legal pieces are handled as parts of a single, careful process rather than separate transactions.
The takeaway
Surrogacy’s protections are real, even where formal regulation is thin — but they depend on the professionals involved applying them, and on families insisting on them. If you’re an intended parent or gestational carrier, the questions worth asking at the outset are simple: Who is vetting the other party? Do I have my own independent attorney? Is anyone cutting a corner that exists for a reason?
At Shulman Family Law Group, we focus exclusively on surrogacy, adoption, and third-party reproduction. If you’re beginning a surrogacy journey and want to understand how these protections apply to your situation, that’s the conversation to have before you begin.