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Brief Historical Background and Definition of Surrogacy

Not many people acknowledge that the surrogacy process has existed
(8)
since the ancient world from time to time inevitably as written in Babylonian
Code. Along the way, there are several signs of progress namely medical

service, tradition dimension, and legal aspect also ethics on this agreement

(9)
globally evolved in a different way. Starting from a hundred- years ago, in
the U.S., from company to researcher had started the mass and variety of

activities related to surrogacy such as the establishment of the sperm bank.
While in England, the first test-tube baby by IVF procedure was born. During

the last 40- years, the very first surrogacy contract was drafted and
(10)
consequently became Baby M case also other cases related to child
(11)
custody. In this late twenty years ago, in Latin American region had started

(8)
Postgate, J.N. (1992). Early Mesopotamia Society and Economy at the Dawn of History.
England: Routledge. p. 105.
(9)
Merino, F. (2010). Adoption and Surrogate Pregnancy. New York: Infobase.
(10)
Van Gelder, L. (1997, 28 January). Noel Keane, 58, Lawyer in Surrogate Mother Cases, Is
Dead. The New York Times. Retrieved August 23, 2019. from https://www.nytimes.com/
1997/01/28/nyregion
(11)
1986-Melissa Stern, known as çBaby M,é was born in the U.S. The surrogate and biological
mother, Mary Beth Whitehead, refused to cede custody of Melissa to the couple with whom
she made the surrogacy agreement. The courts of New Jersey found that Whitehead was
the childûs legal mother and declared contracts for surrogate motherhood illegal and invalid.
However, the court found it in the best interest of the infant to award custody of Melissa
to the childûs biological father, William Stern, and his wife Elizabeth Stern, rather than to
Whitehead, the surrogate mother. See also, 1990 - In California, gestational carrier Anna
Johnson refused to give up the baby to intended parents Mark and Crispina Calvert. The
couple sued her for custody (Calvert v. Johnson), and the court upheld their parental rights.
In doing so, it legally defined the true mother as the woman who, according to the

surrogacy agreement, intends to create and raise a child.

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