California is once again in the spotlight with news that Governor Brown has has signed legislation to allow a child to have three legal parents. The new legislation was created to cover certain situations in which a same-sex couple has a child with an opposite-sex biological parent. Of course, this is causing all sorts of controversy from proponents of the “traditional” family, but with the law set to effect at the beginning of next year, California will now be the fifth state to pass such a law.

The bill was partly prompted by a complicated custody battle in 2011 involving a child of lesbian parents who was placed in foster care after one parent ended up in jail and the other in the hospital. The child’s biological father was initially granted parental responsibilities by a court, but the decision was later reversed after an appeals court concluded a child could not have more than two parents.

The bill was sponsored by the National Center for Lesbian Rights and by the Children’s Advocacy Institute at San Diego School of Law.

Opponents of the new law had the following to say:

“Once we started trying to normalize parenting by same-sex couples and redefine marriage to remove the dual gender requirement, we had to end up with triple parenting,” says Jennifer Roback Morse, founder of the Ruth Institute, which seeks to promote traditional marriage.

Brad Dacus, president of the Pacific Justice Institute, says, “This is, in the long run, going to be a mistake.”

He adds, “The ones who are going to pay the price are not the activists, but it’s going to be children, who will see greater conflict and indecision over matters involving their well-being.”

So what do you think? Does this law make sense for certain situations and certain families?

Some justice for some hopeful parents came out of a court sentencing earlier this week in California. In an unfortunate fraud case where a California surrogate parenting agent collected money from clients and never delivered on services paid for, a judge has ordered restitution in the amount of $1.7 million dollars.

When considering any type of assistance with starting or building a family, taking the time to do the proper research can prove to be crucial. Ask for references, search the internet and scrutinize as much as possible to avoid situations like this one.

Associated Press: MODESTO, Calif.—A federal judge has ordered the owner of a surrogate parenting agency to pay $1.7 million to the victims of a fraud scheme carried out through her Central California-based operation.

The U.S. Attorney’s office said 37-year-old Tonya Ann Collins—the owner of the defunct Surrogenesis agency in Modesto—was ordered to pay the restitution on Monday.

Collins was sentenced in May to five years and three months in prison.

The government said Collins took money from prospective parents and used it for personal expenses, including automobiles, homes, jewelry, clothing and vacations, between 2006 and 2009.

As a result, Collins’ clients, surrogates and other businesses suffered losses of more than $2.4 million.

Prosecutors said that in some cases, victims couldn’t afford a surrogate pregnancy again.

The actor most famous for his role in “Lost Boys,” has been in the tabloids for months now as he tries to continue to gain parental rights to his son who was born to his ex-girlfriend via artificial insemination. At the time, he had agreed to donate his sperm to her in order for her to conceive. After a long legal battle, he is now trying to change state law to allow sperm donors, in certain situations, to become legal parents and share custody of the children that result from their seed.

Proponents of Senate Bill 115 say it will close a legal loophole that forbids certain sperm donors from being recognized as fathers when an unmarried woman is impregnated with their sperm.

The other side says the proposal could grant parenting rights to sperm donors against the wishes of a child’s legal parents. They say the bill is an attempt by Patric to overturn a court ruling that he lost.

“This bill should never be heard by the Legislature,” said Richard Harris, a lobbyist representing Schreiber and her family.

“You don’t use the Legislature to interfere in a court case just because you’re some Hollywood schmo.”

Read more here.

California is set to change their laws with regards to woman and egg donation. The new bill that is set to pass would allow payments over and above direct expenses to be made to women who donate eggs for research. Law makers are urging the passing of the bill to increase the supply of eggs to scientists studying reproduction. The bill will not eliminate restrictions on research supported by the CIRM, a major funder of stem-cell research. In 2004, California enacted Proposition 71, a referendum that only allowed woman donating eggs to California Institute of Regenerative Medicine (CIRM) researchers to be compensated for direct expenses. A separate 2006 law extended that restriction to all research in California.

The bill which is expected to pass as early as tomorrow, could bump up payments to women donating from hundreds to thousands of dollars. A recent egg donation study in Oregon offered between $3,000-$7,000 to each woman donating. The pay boost will likely help researchers to compete with fertility clinics for eggs.

More on this can be found here.

Insoo Hyun, a bioethicist at Case Western Reserve University in Cleveland, Ohio, notes that the new bill mandates oversight by institutional review boards (IRBs), which routinely consider whether compensation constitutes “undue inducement” to the point at which participants ignore risks.

But Hyun takes exception to a loophole in the new bill that applies to eggs left over from donors who are compensated for providing eggs to infertile women. According to Hyun, it is a largely unregulated transaction that can fetch more than $10,000 per collection. Under current law, these leftover eggs cannot be used for research. The proposed bill would allow researchers to use them, but also instructs IRBs to ignore how much women were paid for such eggs, provided certain conditions are met, such as the donor deciding she does not need the eggs herself. “The threat of undue financial inducement is one of the key ethical issues in egg donation for stem-cell and other biomedical research,” explains Hyun, “This bill requires the IRB to disregard this. That’s pretty strong language.”