Beyond Baby M

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Beyond Baby M is the first book to draw together all of today's best thinking on the troubling issue of the nature and morality of surrogate motherhood. The revolutionary biological techniques that recently led to Baby M's surrogate gestation and birth ignited a firestorm of debate about many medical, ethical, legal, and policy issues not previously addressed in our society. Traditional understandings of such concepts as "mother," "parent," and "family," including the disturbing question of precisely who-the biological or the surrogate mother-should have the right to raise such a child, became the focal points of an unprecedented debate. Societal attitudes about the importance of children, the significance of biology in raising them, and whether infertility should be considered a medical problem were all challenged deeply. Indeed, at times the very future and integrity of our basic reproductive rights seem to have been called into question. Never attempting to provide a single set of "correct answers" to such perturbing questions, Beyond Baby M offers a fascinating cross-section of views and arguments-from law to theology, from history to philosophy, from sociology to public affairs to medicine-that bring salutary insights to these especially difficult and critical issues.