The Surrogate State Would-be parents flock to Oregon to start their families with the help of surrogates. We explore the numerous factors that make Oregon a top surrogacy destination. BY BETH SLOVIC
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t was never about the money. Cristina Ferguson, 45, knew after three pregnancies in her 20s — one that ended in miscarriage and two that resulted in healthy babies — that she wanted to ease the heartache of other would-be parents who had trouble conceiving. “I empathized,” says Ferguson. “It just felt like a thing in my life, a pull toward wanting to help someone so they could have a happy ending.” It took until last year — and a chance encounter with a Beaverton surrogacy agency — to realize her dream of carrying a baby for an LGBTQ family. Now Ferguson, a social worker who lives in Reno, Nevada, has only one regret: “I would have done it younger, so I could do it again.” That Oregon played a starring role in Ferguson’s journey is both a coincidence and not. Even as COVID-19 upends every aspect of life today, Oregon remains a leader in surrogacy in the United States and internationally because of a host of factors that include: top fertility clinics, experienced family-formation lawyers, numerous surrogacy agencies, friendly attitudes toward LGBTQ parents, and an easy legal process for assigning rights to parents who might not be genetically
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related to their children. Add to this mix Oregon’s population of openminded moms who want to give others the gift of children, and it’s clear why couples and individuals have come to Oregon from across the country and overseas to conceive. Health concerns and international travel restrictions due to the coronavirus have made the already complicated process more so, but that hasn’t slowed demand here, experts say. “It’s welcoming in terms of the law and politically,” says Robin Pope, a Beaverton lawyer who helped establish Oregon’s legal process for surrogacy. “We are able to do virtually any permutation you can think of.”
