ABSTRACT
The surrogate's egg is fertilized by artificial insemination with sperm from the partner of the woman who hopes to gestate the embryo and raise the child. Low-tech surrogacy requires only that the woman's fertile period be determined and that she be inseminated with viable sperm. In 1986 in Beverly Hills, California, the Center for Surrogate Parenting, with several satisfied surrogate mothers, launched the National Association of Surrogate Mothers. Surrogacy can provide babies for men without access to a woman and for women who are infertile or unwilling to undergo pregnancy. Surrogacy raises many overlapping issues regarding potential harm to children, to the family, to society at large, and to women in particular. Some have attempted to replace "surrogate" and "surrogacy" with other terms, such as "contract pregnancy," "intrauterine adoption," and, as in the report of the Canadian Royal Commission on New Reproductive Technologies, "preconception arrangements."
