As more and more couples seek​ to expand their families through surrogacy arrangements, there is growing support ​for a change to the 1992 New York state law that bans payments to surrogate mothers. At the end of last year, the New York Health Department’s Task Force on Life and the Laws recommended an ​immediate ​ end to the ban on surrogacy. The report of the Task ​F​orce cited both cultural changes and advances in in vitro fertilization since the state first prohibited surrogacy arrangements in 1992. It also ​took note of the 2011 law that legalized ​marriage equality in New York: “Equity must be a driving principle if all families are to enjoy the opportunity to welcome children into their family,” the report stated. “Gestational surrogacy affords lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender (LGBT) families an important opportunity to have children.”

​​Participants include:

Brad Hoylman, State Senator, New York State's 27th State Senate District
Elizabeth B. Cooper, Associate Professor At Fordham Law School
Thomas Laughlin, Esq., Attorney at Scott+Scott
Charles Kaiser (moderator), Associate Director of the LGBT Social Science and Public Policy Center at Hunter College