No. HB 1487
Filed under Healthcare.
Surrogacy and Assisted Reproduction; Provides & revises requirements for preplanned adoption agreements, surrogacy contracts, & informed consent; requires security background investigations of specified parties; requires donor banks, fertility clinics, & surrogacy agencies to be licensed or certified; requires certain entities & persons to develop best practice policies & submit such policies to specified entity; requires specified material be labeled & records maintained for specified timeframe; requires AHCA & DCF to conduct annual inspections; provides for administrative penalties & corrective action plans; requires certain parties undergo mental & medical evaluations; requires surrogacy agencies maintain escrow accounts & provides requirements for such accounts & escrow agents; requires DCF maintain list of certified surrogacy agencies; authorizes certain parties to petition court to validate surrogacy contract & for expedited affirmation of parental status; authorizes deletion of certain names from certain court documents; requires certain notice; provides requirements if court denies affirmation of parentage; requires AHCA, DOH, & DCF to adopt rules.
Plain English Summary
AI-GENERATEDCreates the first state licensing system for fertility clinics and donor banks, and the first certification system for surrogacy agencies. Both face annual inspections, written best-practice policies, and administrative penalties, including fines or losing their license, for violations.
Bars anyone who fails a Level 2 background check from becoming a parent through preplanned adoption or surrogacy. A disqualified intended parent loses any claim to the child, the surrogate becomes the legal mother, and the couple still owes child support.
Limits surrogacy contracts to a Florida-domiciled surrogate and intended parents who are citizens or lawful residents, and moves surrogates who use their own egg out of adoption law and into the surrogacy-contract system alongside gestational surrogates.
Requires surrogacy agencies to escrow client funds through an independent agent, and lets a couple and surrogate ask a court to validate their surrogacy contract before conception instead of only after the child is born.
AIThe Agency for Health Care Administration must adopt rules and license every donor bank and fertility clinic in the state. Clinics already operating get 6 months to become licensed once the rules take effect, and a license lasts 2 years subject to annual inspections.
AIA surrogacy agency must apply for and keep certification from the Department of Children and Families, renewed every 2 years with annual inspections. Noncompliance can bring a corrective action plan, administrative fines, or suspension or revocation of certification.
AIIf a background check finds either member of the commissioning couple is a disqualified person, the court cannot affirm them as the child's parents. The gestational surrogate or surrogate instead becomes the child's legal mother, with a right to child support from the couple.
AIA surrogacy contract is only valid if each member of the commissioning couple is a U.S. citizen, lawful permanent resident, or lawfully present Florida domiciliary, and the surrogate herself is domiciled in Florida and a citizen or lawful permanent resident.
AIOnce intended parents petition to approve a preplanned adoption, the court clerk must obtain a level 2 background check on each of them, and the court cannot approve the adoption if either one is a disqualified person.
AIA preplanned adoption agreement can no longer be used for a surrogacy arrangement. A new kind of 'surrogate,' who uses her own egg, is instead written into the surrogacy-contract statute alongside gestational surrogates who do not use their own egg.
AIA commissioning couple and prospective surrogate may ask a court to validate their surrogacy contract before conception, after a Florida residency period and a favorable home study. The court's decision is discretionary and reviewable only for abuse of discretion.
AIA surrogacy agency must place payments from a commissioning couple into an escrow account with an independent escrow agent, except for payments tied to the agency's own compensation and operating costs, which never have to be escrowed at all.