Surrogate MotherHood

14 Pages 3494 Words

ssible implications that could result from contractual surrogacy. At the time of the Baby M case, most states had no precedent on how to deal with surrogacy cases. The question of whether to enforce or deny the validity of the contract came became the center of the case. While many states have adopted some sort of guidelines, the majority still have no concrete legislation either upholding or negating the contracts in surrogacy cases.

Surrogate motherhood is an alternative to natural methods of reproduction, in which another female, the surrogate, is chosen to bear a child for another couple or person. In most cases, it is married couple looking to have a child but cannot do it by “normal” mean since the wife is infertile or has a condition in which she cannot give birth. As another option, the couple hires a female, who has met their requirements for characteristics such as age, height, and other physical qualities. Once the female agrees to carry the couple’s child and give it to them once it is conceived, the surrogate is inseminated with the husband’s sperm, usually by means of artificial insemination. It is also expected that she relinquish all parental rights and ties to the child once it has been born, making the couple the sole legal parents of the baby.
Though Field claims that acts of surrogacy have been practiced since at least the times of the Bible (p. 5), contract surrogacy has only emerged since the mid 1970’s. With this emergence, surrogacy became a regulated process by which the couple writes out what is expected of the surrogate mother, such as turning over the child when born, and sets a price or compensation that the mother will receive for her efforts. Typical compensation for a surrogate could range from anywhere from $10,000 to $25,000 and more. In most cases, the surrogate is given a fee (possibly in the range or higher) plus has her medical and living expenses paid for.
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