In the last decade, a number of surrogacy bills have been introduced in the Pennsylvania legislature.
None have made it out of committee, much less become law.
That bill died in the House Judiciary Committee in November 1996. Indeed, the bill irrationally would have made it procedurally more difficult to terminate the parental rights of the surrogate mother and her husband and assign parental rights to the intended parents than in a conventional adoption where neither adopting parent is biologically related to the child. Meeting the same fate as other Pennsylvania surrogate parenting legislation, H.B. 527 of 1997 died in the House Judiciary Committee in November 1998. In the history of the jurisprudence of Pennsylvania, there has not been a single reported appellate opinion involving a disputed custody claim arising out of a surrogate parenting arrangement or directly addressing the validity or enforceability of a surrogate parenting agreement. The woman who gestates and gives birth to the child is, in effect, conclusively presumed to be the legal mother of the child.