Michael Jackson

I have been pondering all of the recent media attention regarding acccess to IVF and age, remember the "World's Oldest Mom," and Michael Jackson's children created via IVF and surrogacy (and possibly egg donor and/or sperm donor). Again, I am surprised by the number of people who want to restrict access to IVF, or more importantly access to having a family. They want age limits, marital status limits, as well as sexual orientation limitations.

I thought since this issue was all over the web in the last couple of weeks that most people understood the issues involved, but just last week a neighbor came up to me and asked me that very question: So, what about Michael Jackson's kids?. I knew where he was going so I replied, just as I did for Tamera H. Bennett at her blog, Bennett Law Office (http://tinyurl.com/mq33ny), that in California, it doesn't matter if Michael used a sperm donor an egg donor and a surrogate for all of his children.

Today I did a great interview with Creating A Family that has alot of information on Surrogacy for everyone. The host, Dawn Davenport, asked great questions, and I think that you will learn alot. Click Here for the entire show from today, July 8, 2009: http://www.creatingafamily.com/index.php?content=radio_show.

California is one of the only states that permits the intent of the parent(s) to govern their parental rights, so that the intended parent (or intended parents) are listed as the legal parents on the birth certificate, regardless of biological connection, so long as this intent is formalized in an agreement/consent.