The Colorado House on Friday approved final changes to a bill to ease the adoption process for couples who conceive through artificial insemination or use a surrogate, sending the legislation to Gov. Jared Polis’ desk.

House Bill 1153, sponsored in the House by Majority Leader Rep. Daneya Esgar, D-Pueblo and Rep. Kerry Tipper, D-Lakewood, would simplify the process for courts in dealing with parental rights for those who use assistive reproductive technologies, such as artificial insemination or a surrogate, to have children. The bill would primarily assist LGBTQ couples, although it would also help straight couples who use a surrogate or donated eggs.

For the Esgar, the bill drew from her personal experience.

She told Colorado Politics she sponsored the bill after the difficulties she and wife, Heather Palm, went through after Esgar gave birth to daughter Marlo last July. They learned struggled to ensure Palm was legally considered to be Marlo’s mom – and they learned they weren’t not alone.

Esgar carried Marlo, but the egg came from Palm. Biologically, Palm is also Marlo’s mom. 

Under current law, an option is to go through a step-parent adoption process, though the sponsors said that creates other legal problems.

The legislation creates a new adoption process. 

Under the bill, some of the standard requirements for adoption would be eliminated, such as background checks and parental visits. The bill would also remove the requirement of obtaining consent from an anonymous donor. 

“My wife should not have to go through an adoption process to adopt her biological daughter,” Esgar said during a February committee hearing. “This isn’t an adoption. This was a child that we both consensually in our marriage consented to create and a child that we gave birth to and a child that we are bringing into this world together to raise together.”

The bill was amended in the Senate to clarify some of the language around assisted reproduction. But it was the amendment the sponsors, Sens. Jeff Bridges, D-Greenwood Village and Dominick Moreno, D-Commerce City, put on the bill in its final passage that came as a surprise to Esgar.

They amended the bill to call it “Marlo’s Law.”

HB 1153 won unanimous support in the Senate Health & Human Services Committee and a 34-0 vote on April 1.

The House concurred with the Senate amendments Friday, re-passed the bill and it now heads to Gov. Jared Polis for signing.