New York Consolidated Laws, Family Court Act - FCT § 581-102. Definitions

(a) “Assisted reproduction” means a method of causing pregnancy other than sexual intercourse and includes but is not limited to:

(b) “Child” means a born individual of any age whose parentage may be determined under this act or other law.

(c) “Compensation” means payment of any valuable consideration in excess of reasonable medical and ancillary costs.

(d) “Donor” means an individual who does not intend to be a parent who produces gametes and provides them to another person, other than the individual's spouse, for use in assisted reproduction.  The term does not include a person who is a parent under part three of this article.  Donor also includes an individual who had dispositional control of an embryo or gametes who then transfers dispositional control and releases all present and future parental and inheritance rights and obligations to a resulting child.

(e) “Embryo” means a cell or group of cells containing a diploid complement of chromosomes or group of such cells, not a gamete or gametes, that has the potential to develop into a live born human being if transferred into the body of a person under conditions in which gestation may be reasonably expected to occur.

(f) “Embryo transfer” means all medical and laboratory procedures that are necessary to effectuate the transfer of an embryo into the uterine cavity.

(g) “Gamete” means a cell containing a haploid complement of DNA that has the potential to form an embryo when combined with another gamete.  Sperm and eggs shall be considered gametes.  A human gamete used or intended for reproduction may not contain nuclear DNA that has been deliberately altered, or nuclear DNA from one human combined with the cytoplasm or cytoplasmic DNA of another human being.

(h) “Health care practitioner” means an individual licensed or certified under title eight of the education law, or a similar law of another state or country, acting within his or her scope of practice.

(i) “Independent escrow agent” means someone other than the parties to a surrogacy agreement and their attorneys.  An independent escrow agent can, but need not, be a surrogacy program, provided such surrogacy program is owned by an attorney licensed to practice law in the state of New York.  If such independent escrow agent is not an attorney owned surrogacy program, it shall be bonded and insured.

(j) “In vitro fertilization” means the formation of a human embryo outside the human body for purposes of assisted reproduction.

(k) “Intended parent” is an individual who manifests the intent to be legally bound as the parent of a child resulting from assisted reproduction or a surrogacy agreement, provided the individual meets the requirements of this article.

(l) “Parent” as used in this article means an individual with a parent-child relationship created or recognized under this act or other law.

(m) “Participant” is an individual who either provides a gamete that is used in assisted reproduction, is an intended parent, is a person acting as surrogate, or is the spouse of an intended parent or person acting as surrogate.

(n) “Person acting as surrogate” means an adult person, not an intended parent, who enters into a surrogacy agreement to bear a child who will be the legal child of the intended parent or parents so long as the person acting as surrogate has not provided the egg used to conceive the resulting child.

(o) “Record” means information inscribed in a tangible medium or stored in an electronic or other medium that is retrievable in perceivable form.

(p) “Retrieval” means the procurement of eggs or sperm from a gamete provider.

(q) “Spouse” means an individual married to another, or who has a legal relationship entered into under the laws of the United States or of any state, local or foreign jurisdiction, which is substantially equivalent to a marriage, including a civil union or domestic partnership.

(r) “State” means a state of the United States, the District of Columbia, Puerto Rico, the United States Virgin Islands, or any territory or insular possession subject to the jurisdiction of the United States.

(s) “Surrogacy agreement” means an agreement between at least one intended parent and a person acting as surrogate intended to result in a live birth where the child will be the legal child of the intended parent or parents.

(t) “Transfer” means the placement of an embryo or gametes into the body of a person with the intent to achieve pregnancy and live birth.