Massachusetts senators unanimously voted on Tuesday to approve legislation that would expand who legally qualifies as a parent, including in cases where a parent might not have genetic ties to their child — a move viewed as a win especially for LGBTQ parents who can face hurdles in establishing parentage.
The Massachusetts Parentage Act, a very similar version of which passed unanimously in the House last month, now heads into negotiations between House and Senate leaders. Both chambers must approve an identical version of the bill before it can head to Governor Maura Healey, who expressed her support for it months ago, but legislators and advocates say the differences between the two bills are minor.
The legislation would update guidelines for courts and families to make it easier for someone to legally qualify as a parent by addressing various ways that someone can become one, including through birth, adoption, marriage, surrogacy, and assisted reproduction, such as in-vitro fertilization. It would also replace gendered language currently used to refer to parents, such as “mothers” and “fathers.”
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Under existing Massachusetts law, which supporters of the legislation said has not been updated in decades, nonbiological parents at times need to formally adopt their children to secure the same parental rights as a birth parent. Those rights include maintaining custody of a child and handling their medical decisions.
The legislation would modernize parentage definitions by removing out-of-date language such as references to “children born out of wedlock” and adding definitions for terms including “assisted reproduction,” “donor,” and “intended parent.” Other New England states, including Connecticut and Maine, have passed similar updated parentage laws in recent years.
The legislation’s momentum in Massachusetts followed the overturning of Roe v. Wade, prompting concerns about reproductive rights and the future of procedures such as IVF. It also came amid a surge in state legislation targeting LGBTQ rights around the country. Updating Massachusetts laws, the legislation’s supporters argued, would ensure that nonbirth parents could be legally recognized across the country, including in states seeking to roll back LGBTQ protections.
Polly Crozier, the director of family advocacy for the GLBTQ Legal Advocates and Defenders, has for years pushed for updated legislation in Massachusetts. On Tuesday, she said new language was “incredibly overdue” and saw heightened urgency “in this national climate.”
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“Kids are vulnerable in Massachusetts, and then they’re really vulnerable when they travel to other states,” Crozier said, adding: “We want kids to be able to go anywhere and still have their parents.”
Top statewide officials, including Healey and Attorney General Andrea Campbell, voiced their support for the act months in advance of the legislation’s passage, after Michigan Governor Gretchen Whitmer signed bills in April that decriminalized surrogacy and enacted new parental protections.
“We’ve been proud to be a national leader and trailblazer when it comes to LGBTQ+ equality, but we’ve got some catching up to do,” Healey said at the time. “Let’s pass the Massachusetts Parentage Act to make sure every family has the legal protections they need and deserve.”
Campbell added the state’s laws “have not kept pace with the diversity of modern-day families” and pointed to other states that took “the necessary steps to protect families, provide stability for children and advance reproductive and LGBTQ+ rights.”
The Senate legislation, which passed 40-0, was sponsored by Senator Julian Cyr, a Provincetown Democrat, and minority leader Bruce Tarr, a Republican from Gloucester, demonstrating the bipartisan support for the law.
“Every child should have the right to have parentage clearly established, and that is true for parents as well who may come to this situation from different circ*mstances, who may have used different technology but who remain parents with federal obligation to the child,” Tarr said before the bill’s passage.
Cyr, during debate, said the legislation was “close to my heart,” pointing to his sister and sister-in-law who he said had to pay thousands of dollars for his sister-in-law to legally adopt the couple’s child.
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After it passed, Cyr said the bill “is a real critical step to guarantee that all children can benefit from the stability of a legal parent-child relationship, no matter how they came into this world.” He added that legislators are “aiming” to get the bill passed before formal session wraps up Wednesday.
While legislation could be taken up in informal session after then, one vote of dissent in such a session can kill a bill.
The House legislation unanimously passed in June on a 156-0 vote, after House Speaker Ron Marianohad earlier said during a pride flag-raising ceremony last month that he would aim to see it through.
“Marriage looks different today than it did 10 years ago, so we’re trying to keep pace with the changes that are occurring in society and not burden people for doing the right thing,” he said.
Annika Bockius-Suwyn, an attorney from Waltham, said she and her wife became parents through reciprocal IVF, meaning embryos were created using her wife’s eggs and Bockius-Suwyn carried the child to term. But Massachusetts law did not acknowledge their parental circ*mstances, so the couple had to legally adopt their child. Bockius-Suwyn said that “traveling is scary without a little more protection.”
“This sends the message that Massachusetts is not going to give into the fearmongering,” she said of the Senate vote. “It’s going to affirmatively say that we accept families of all makeups, and we’re protecting kids.”
Anjali Huynh can be reached at anjali.huynh@globe.com.
