At Law: Death without Dignity for Commercial Surrogacy: The Case of Baby M

Abstract

The New Jersey Supreme Court's In re Baby M ruling is applauded for remedying the flawed opinion of the lower court by invalidating surrogate contracts, applying existing law to determine custody, and restoring the natural mother's parental rights. Portions of the decision highlighted are the court's rejection of the label "surrogate mother" and the claim that surrogacy promotes family building. The author analyzes the surrogacy contract's violation of existing adoption laws, the constitutional issues raised by the contract, the court's controversial ruling on custody, and responses to the opinion by commercial baby brokers. He concludes that legislation must be enacted now to prevent "full surrogacy," in which in vitro fertilization and embryo transfer render the gestational mother an incubator with no rights or interests in the child.