This comprehensive book covers the research, theory, policy and practice context of unusual reproduction using third parties. Olga Van den Akker details the psychological adaptation required to continuing changes in public opinion, advances in technologies and new legislations in surrogate motherhood and discusses their impact at an individual, societal and global level. She describes the competing interests and interactions between legal, organisational, personal, social, psychological and cultural issues in relation to biological and genetic surrogate and commissioning parenthood. This book is intended for professionals, practitioners, academics and students interested in the complexities of unusual reproduction using multidisciplinary perspectives.

This book provides an expert view of research on parenting and child development in new family forms.

While the practice of surrogacy has existed for millennia, new fertility technologies have allowed women to act as gestational surrogates, carrying children that are not genetically their own. While some women volunteer to act as gestational surrogates for friends or family members, others get paid for performing this service. The first ethnographic study of gestational surrogacy in the United States, Labor of Love examines the conflicted attitudes that emerge when the ostensibly priceless act of bringing a child into the world becomes a paid occupation. Heather Jacobson interviews not only surrogate mothers, but also their family members, the intended parents who employ surrogates, and the various professionals who work to facilitate the process. Seeking to understand how gestational surrogates perceive their vocation, she discovers that many regard surrogacy as a calling, but are reluctant to describe it as a job. In the process, Jacobson dissects the complex set of social attitudes underlying this resistance toward conceiving of pregnancy as a form of employment. Through her extensive field research, Jacobson gives readers a firsthand look at the many challenges faced by gestational surrogates, who deal with complicated medical procedures, delicate work-family balances, and tricky social dynamics. Yet Labor of Love also demonstrates the extent to which advances in reproductive technology are affecting all Americans, changing how we think about maternity, family, and the labor involved in giving birth. For more, visit http://www.heatherjacobsononline.com/

Surrogate Motherhood: Conception in the Heart is a compelling account written with analytical clarity and remarkable compassion. Helena Ragoné has given long overdue humanity and voice to the actual participants in the surrogate motherhood experience—a heretofore inaccessible population—and the results are fascinating. Anyone interested in fertility, parenting, reproduction, and kinship, or anyone interested in contemporary culture will want to read this book.

Where pregnancy is concerned, let every pregnancy be for everyone. Let us overthrow, in short, the “family” The surrogacy industry is estimated to be worth over $1 billion a year, and many of its surrogates around the world work in terrible conditions—deception, wage-stealing and money skimming are rife; adequate medical care is horrifyingly absent; and informed consent is depressingly rare. In Full Surrogacy Now, Sophie Lewis brings a fresh and unique perspective to the topic. Often, we think of surrogacy as the problem, but, Full Surrogacy Now argues, we need more surrogacy, not less! Rather than looking at surrogacy through a legal lens, Lewis argues that the needs and protection of surrogates should be put front and center. Their relationship to the babies they gestate must be rethought, as part of a move to recognize that reproduction is productive work. Only then can we begin to break down our assumptions that children “belong” to those whose genetics they share. Taking collective responsibility for children would radically transform our notions of kinship, helping us to see that it always takes a village to make a baby.

This book delves deeply into modern surrogacy arrangements, responding to both practical and ethical critiques by offering a radically new model for surrogate motherhood. Current practice distinguishes between two models of surrogacy – the altruistic (unpaid) model and the commercial (paid) model, both of which present social, ethical, and conceptual challenges. This book proposes a novel arrangement for surrogate motherhood – the professional model. Inspired by professions, such as nursing, teaching, and social work, the professional model acknowledges the caring motives that surrogate mothers have while at the same time compensating them for their work. Walker and Van Zyl adopt an evidence-based approach to explain that the professional model enables trust between intended parents and surrogates, provides professional support at every stage of the relationship, affords legal protections against exploitation and commodification, and recognizes the rights and interests of all parties, including the intended baby. The model applies to both transnational and domestic surrogacy and will be of great interest to policy makers, social researchers, bioethicists, legal scholars, fertility professionals, clinicians, and graduate students in psychology, philosophy, medicine and ethics.

From the New York Times bestselling author of Crazy Love comes a riveting new narrative about surrogate pregnancy from both sides of the equation—the parents and the gestational carrier. Once considered a desperate, even morally suspect option, surrogacy is now sweeping headlines, transforming the lives of celebrity mothers and fathers like Sarah Jessica Parker, Nicole Kidman and Elton John, and changing the face of motherhood and the American family. But how much do we really know about it? And is it really as easy and accessible – emotionally, financially, legally and physically – as magazines make it out to be? We often hear about successful outcomes, but little about the journey – about the precious hope that starts it all, the ups and downs of finding a surrogate, the heartache and obstacles, the risks and expenses at every step, or the unbelievable joy when years of determination pay off. In The Baby Chase, acclaimed writer Leslie Morgan Steiner weaves three stories together — of a nurse, a firefighter, and the Indian gestational carriers and doctors who helped them — to provide one intensely personal look at what makes surrogacy so controversial, fascinating, and in some cases, the only ray of hope for today's infertile parents-to-be. Rhonda Wile and her husband Gerry struggled for years with infertility. With perseverance that shocked everyone around them, they tried every procedure and option available – unsuccessfully – until they finally decided to hire a surrogate. While surrogacy was being touted as a miracle for hopeful parents, for Rhonda and Gerry, it seemed an impossible and unaffordable dream. Until they came across the beaming smile of a beautiful Indian woman on the internet... and, within a few short months, embarked on a journey that would take them deep into the emerging world of Indian carriers, international medical tourism, and the global surrogacy community. Moving, page-turning, and meticulously researched, this complex human story is paired with an examination of the issues—religious, legal, medical and emotional—that shapes surrogacy as a solution both imperfect and life-changing.