Surrogacy: Giving it an Understood Name

Abstract

Surrogacy has appeared at the eye of the storm surrounding assisted reproduction. The lightning rod for the controversy which has engulfed it in the United Kingdom was the well publicised case of Re A Baby, the “Baby Cotton” case in January 1985.' Even though it does not necessarily demand the most technologically sophisticated contribution to conception, nor is it presently thought to be the most statistically significant response to infertility, surrogacy has become the whipping post for the moral backlash against what is seen as the brave new world of technological rationality and scientific finality. It is seen to cut clearly into fundamental values; to disturb cherished ideals of personal integrity, family life and national security. It is identified as a time bomb primed to explode in the course of the “reproduction revolution.”²