§ 581-407 Insufficient surrogacy agreement

If a surrogacy agreement is missing key legal requirements, courts won't enforce it as written. Instead, a judge will look at what the parties intended when they made the agreement and will also think about what's best for the child. This means the deal doesn't just fall apart because it's flawed. The court steps in to sort out who the legal parents are.

This matters most for intended parents who don't share DNA with the child. The rule makes clear that not being genetically related to the child is not, by itself, a reason to deny someone legal parentage. So if you're an intended parent who used a donor egg or sperm, you can still be recognized as the legal parent even if your surrogacy paperwork had problems, as long as the court finds that becoming a parent was clearly the plan and that doing so serves the child's best interests.

In short, this rule protects intended parents and children when a surrogacy contract is incomplete or doesn't meet all legal requirements. It gives courts room to look at the bigger picture of intent and the child's wellbeing, rather than throwing out the entire arrangement over technical mistakes.