For decades, estate planning was relatively straightforward when it came to defining “children” and “descendants.” Traditional legal definitions assumed a timeline where children were born during a person\u2019s lifetime or shortly after their passing.<\/p>\n
Today, the landscape of family building has beautifully evolved. Thanks to Assisted Reproductive Technology (ART)\u2014including In Vitro Fertilization (IVF), egg and sperm donation, and gestational surrogacy\u2014families are being built in ways that traditional law never anticipated.<\/p>\n
If you have used, or plan to use, alternative reproductive options, standard “cookie-cutter” estate planning documents can leave massive legal blind spots. Here is what you need to consider to ensure your family and your wishes are fully protected.<\/p>\n
Most standard wills and trusts use broad terms like “to my surviving issue”<\/em> or “to my children, per stirpes.”<\/em> Under older state laws, these terms may not automatically include children born via reproductive technology.<\/p>\n One of the most complex aspects of ART in estate planning is the disposition of cryopreserved (frozen) eggs, sperm, or embryos. Legally, these are often treated as a unique form of property rather than individuals, which means they must be accounted for in your planning.<\/p>\n If you are working with a gestational carrier, your parental rights are typically established via a Pre-Birth or Post-Birth Order. However, timing is everything.<\/p>\n If a tragedy occurs while the surrogate is pregnant, standard trust documents might not recognize the unborn child as a legal beneficiary yet. Your estate planning instruments need customized language to bridge the gap between the pregnancy, the legal parentage order, and your trust to ensure your future child is fully provided for from day one.<\/p>\n Every parent of minor children needs to name a guardian, but ART introduces an extra layer of nuance. If you have frozen embryos or genetic material left over, you need to designate a specific person to have decision-making authority over that material.<\/p>\n Leaving these decisions unaddressed can lead to painful, public court battles among surviving family members.<\/p>\n Your family is unique, and your estate plan should be too. Relying on generic drafting can accidentally disinherit the very children you worked so hard to bring into the world.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" For decades, estate planning was relatively straightforward when it came to defining “children” and “descendants.” Traditional legal definitions assumed a timeline where children were born during a person’s lifetime or shortly after their passing. Today, the landscape of family building has beautifully evolved. Thanks to Assisted Reproductive Technology (ART)—including In…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":2059,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_feature_clip_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2},"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_links_to":"","_links_to_target":""},"categories":[762,587],"tags":[766,57,470,765,56],"class_list":["post-2110","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-assisted-reproductive-technology","category-estate-planning","tag-assisted-reproductive-technology","tag-estate-planning","tag-guardians","tag-ivf","tag-trusts"],"acf":[],"yoast_head":"\n\n
The Legal Status of “Cryopreserved” Material<\/h2>\n
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Gestational Surrogacy and Trust Drafting<\/h2>\n
Appointing the Right Guardians<\/h2>\n
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The Takeaway<\/h2>\n