The new state law that lifts Michigan’s 38-year-old ban on paid surrogate pregnancy contracts took effect Monday.

Michigan banned the practice after a Dearborn attorney gained nationwide notoriety in the 1980s for arranging surrogate contracts.

Surrogate parenting was new, controversial and misunderstood when it first became an option, said Stephanie Jones with the Michigan Fertility Alliance.

“And I really think people have changed their outlook on this significantly since then and it’s just become more of a norm,” she told Michigan Public Radio. “People have become more aware of infertility and the need for assisted reproduction to grow your family. So, I think it’s just become more palatable over the years and we, of course, want to be able to support people who need this to grow their families.”

The newly effective laws outline the legal rights and obligations of all parties to a surrogate arrangement. That includes automatic parental rights for couples without having to adopt after a child is born.

Advocates say that makes the arrangements enforceable and predictable. But some conservatives and faith groups say the development is not a welcome one.

Michigan Catholic Conference Vice President for Public Policy and Advocacy Tom Hickson said the church believes infertile couples should consider foster parenting or adoption. He said allowing surrogates to be paid will lead to exploiting vulnerable young women.

“That was the No. 1 amendment that we tried to get in was to strike the compensation aspect of this,” he said. “I mean that just really minimizes the dignity of motherhood and childbirth into a sale and delivery mechanism.”

Michigan joins the vast majority of U.S. states in allowing compensated surrogacy contracts.

The Michigan Supreme Court will hear arguments next month over who gets custody of a frozen embryo following a couple’s divorce.

David and Sarah Markiewicz had four children while they were married. Three were conceived via in-vitro fertilization using the husband’s sperm and the wife’s sister providing the eggs.

The final unresolved issue left from their 2020 divorce is possession of the final frozen embryo.

The Michigan Court of Appeals ruled 2-1 in December of 2023 that the frozen embryo would go to the ex-husband because he had the most direct biological connection. The court also rejected an argument that the embryo should go to Sarah Markiewicz under Michigan’s reproductive freedom amendment.

The dissenting opinion argued the ruling ignored a contractual agreement and should be sent back to a trial court to consider the contract in light of the state’s reproductive freedom amendment.

Attorney Liisa Speaker, who chairs the Family Law Section of the State Bar of Michigan, told the Michigan Public Radio Network that people often avoid tough conversations when planning pregnancies using assisted reproductive technologies.

“What if one of them dies before the embryo is implanted and what happens then? They need to be thinking about what happens in the event of a divorce,” she said. “If we have multiple embryos that haven’t been used, what are we going to do with them?”

Speaker said a Supreme Court decision could help set some clear guidance for judges to follow in disputes as IVF pregnancies continue to become more common.