When patients come to see me to do IVF and want to use a gestational carrier or surrogate, I encourage them to get a good lawyer and have their carriers to deliver outside of New Jersey. Why? All of this goes back to a court case in NJ that occurred back when I was still in medical school and many of my patients were not even born yet, called the Baby M Case. This case was different from what we see today. IVF was still in its infancy, so it involved insemination and traditional surrogacy in which the surrogate was also the genetic mother of the child. Today, most gestational carriers do not provide the eggs, only the womb. This “Retro Report” in the NY Times revisits the case and does a great job in explaining the complexities of this landmark case in reproductive law and how it affects fertility patients to this day. Click here to read the times article and see the video.
Princeton Fertility Blog 