Massachusetts Donor Insemination Law
Massachusetts law only takes into consideration the use of donor insemination by married couples. According to state law, a child born to a woman as a result of artificial insemination with the consent of her husband is the legitimate child of both spouses.
Cases Dealing with Donor Insemination
In one 2001 case, Culliton v. Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center, the Supreme Judicial Court granted a joint request from the participants in a gestational surrogacy agreement to have the genetic parents listed as the parents on the baby’s birth certificate. The court noted that existing state law only addressed artificial insemination (which did not occur here) and only considered that procedure as performed on a fertile wife whose husband consents to her insemination by an anonymous donor.
With the advent of legal marriages between same-sex couples in Massachusetts, the status of the laws and cases in this area and how they apply to same-sex married couples is unclear.
Citations: MASS. GEN. LAWS ch. 46, § 4B (2003); Culliton v. Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center, 756 N.E.2d 1133 (Mass. 2001).
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Last Updated: 8/30/2004