Case study – the case of Baby M

For a fee of $10,000, a woman agrees to be artificially inseminated with the semen of another woman’s husband; she is to conceive a child, carry it to term, and after its birth surrender it to the natural father and his wife. The intent of the contract is that the child’s natural mother will thereafter be forever separated from her child. The wife is to adopt the child, and she and the natural father are to be regarded as its parents for all purposes. The contract providing for this is called a “surrogacy contract,” the natural mother inappropriately called the “surrogate mother.”

http://www.justiceharvard.org/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=94:in-the-matter-of-baby-m-1988&catid=25:episode-five&Itemid=7