Law Commons^™

Fairy Tales Surrogate Mothers Tell, George J. Annas

Faculty Scholarship

How did surrogate motherhood evolve from a "hare-brained, fly by night" idea of the late 1970s into one that had at least some mainstream, middle-class support in the mid-198os? Many explanations have been suggested. Although the rate of infertility has not increased, infertility is no longer a secret, and there are major public support groups, like RESOLVE, that advocate for infertile couples. New and powerful techniques like IVF (in vitro fertilization) have been developed, and although they help very few people, they have been widely publicized and approved. And babies are fashionable again. As one movie critic put it: "Men …