Merrick, Janna C. "Selling Reproductive Rights: Policy Issues in Surrogate Motherhood." Politics and the Life Sciences 8, 2 (February, 1990):161-72.
From the Introduction. In February and March 1987, America watched as the real life drama of Baby M was played out in a New Jersey courtroom. The facts of the case have been related countless times in newspapers, popular magazines, on television talk shows, and ultimately through a made-for-TV movie. William Stern had contracted with Mary Beth Whitehead to bear his child through a surrogate motherhood arrangement. The deal had gone sour shortly after the birth when Whitehead refused to surrender the child and fled to Florida. A bitter legal battle ensued, and ultimately custody was awarded to Stern and his wife. Visitation was permitted for Whitehead.
This case heightened the nation’s awareness of emerging issues in human reproduction. Surrogacy is only one of a number of options available to couples facing problems of infertility. Many of these options involve sophisticated technology such as in vitro fertilization, embryo transfer, and embryo freezing. Typically, surrogacy does not require such technology, but is a social and legal arrangement whereby a woman agrees to act as a surrogate and be artificially inseminated with the sperm of a man whose wife cannot or will not bear a child. Upon surrender of the child, the surrogate is paid a fee….
On the surface, surrogacy arrangements seem like an ideal solution for an infertile couple who would like a child genetically related to at least one of them. Unfortunately, there are significant social, ethical, and legal questions that warrant a deeper examination of this "solution."
In the area of assisted reproduction, and particularly in commercial surrogacy, public policy is sorely lacking. There are well-intentioned people on both sides of this debate who disagree with one another regarding whether public policy should promote, regulate, or ban surrogacy. The purpose of this article is to examine the social, ethical, and legal issues which must be sorted out to achieve a workable surrogacy policy.