Attorney Victoria Ferrara’s newly published book, Gestational Surrogacy: The Definitive Guide is “one of the most thorough yet understandable roadmaps to breaking down this multi step process into simple, manageable steps with an awareness of not only each critical component but also of how they fit together and how one affects the other. ..”says Michael B. Doyle, M.D., a renowned fertility specialist who has helped many people achieve dreams of having children through surrogacy.
As a comprehensive self-help, how-to guide for intended parents turning to surrogacy, this book, is a soup-to-nuts work that will take intended parents through the surrogacy journey from when they sign on with a surrogacy agency and a reproductive clinic, to when they are home enjoying their newborn. Many people do not know very much about gestational surrogacy and why it is an important fertility option. People are afraid to think about surrogacy as an option to have children because of the myths and misconceptions. This book will alleviate fears and anxieties about surrogacy as a personal option to have children, and as an acceptable societal mode to create families. It will educate, inform, and provide relief to countless readers.
Ferrara opens the book with a history of surrogacy in the United States and then leads the readers through the extraordinary ethical framework of gestational surrogacy as it is done in the United States. Further on, Ferrara meticulously explains the various stages of the surrogacy journey in detail that will assist all intended parents to organize their thoughts and plans to have children through surrogacy. As Dr. Doyle asserts, this book is authored by“ one of the most trusted and admired surrogacy attorneys in the United States.”
The book is geared to gestational surrogates as well as intended parents, in that it gives thoughtful consideration to what surrogates need to know about the surrogacy process and what they should look for in choosing a surrogacy agency that will properly support them in this profound endeavor. Attorney Ferrara is the Founder and Legal Director of Worldwide Surrogacy Specialists, LLC, one of the foremost and leading surrogacy agencies in the world. She incorporates her thirty plus years of legal practice in assisted reproduction technology law as legal advisor to the many intended parents she represents. Ferrara changed the law in Connecticut when she argued the case of Raftopol v Ramey before the Supreme Court of Connecticut. This precedent-setting case paved the way for all intended parents, genetic or non-genetic, straight or gay, to become legal parents of their babies by way of a pre-birth order of legal parentage. In sum, Ferrara created anew way to become a legal parent.
Ferrara is a member of the Academy of Adoption and Assisted Reproduction Attorneys, the American Society for Reproductive Medicine, the American Bar Association Family Law Section, and the National LGBTQ+ Bar Association’s Family Law Group. She was awarded the LAMBDA Award for Outstanding LGBTQ+ Community Service, as well as the Mid-Fairfield AIDS Project President’s Award since she was the President of this organization in the1980s.Shefrequently lectures and presents as a panelist at international surrogacy conferences, universities, and professional seminars all over the world.