Gestational Agreements in Texas: Surrogacy Law | Fort Worth

Surrogacy is one of the most hopeful ways to build a family in Texas, and also one of the most legally structured, which is why this episode walks through exactly how gestational agreements work under Texas Family Code Chapter 160 for intended parents and gestational carriers in Fort Worth and Tarrant County. We explain what a gestational agreement is and how it differs from an ordinary contract, who must be included as parties under Section 160.754, why current Texas law requires the intended parents to be married to each other, and why the gestational carrier cannot contribute her own eggs, which is the legal line that separates gestational surrogacy from traditional surrogacy. The heart of the episode is the court validation requirement in Section 160.756, the step that must generally occur before assisted reproduction begins and that transforms the agreement into an enforceable legal framework, including the findings a judge reviews such as jurisdiction, medical evidence, voluntariness, the carrier's prior pregnancy and delivery, and a home study unless waived. We also cover the payoff of doing it right, the parentage order under Section 160.760 that establishes the intended parents as the child's legal parents at birth without a separate adoption, and the risk of skipping the step, because under Section 160.762 an agreement that was never validated is not enforceable and parentage falls back to the ordinary rules. Finally, we discuss how the process plays out in the Tarrant County courts, how legal and medical timelines are kept aligned, and why Texas's statutory framework gives families front-loaded certainty that many other states cannot offer. This episode is for general informational purposes and does not constitute legal advice; the laws discussed apply to the State of Texas.