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Have Womb, Will Travel: The True Story of an Intercontinental Surrogacy. Renée van Oostveen. 2008. 340p. Lingomatics Ltd.
From the Publisher: Renée van Oostveen had finally met the man of her dreams at 40 and wanted to start a family right away. But things did not all go as expected. Unable to conceive naturally, the couple tried in vitro fertilization, ten times with her own eggs (resulting in two miscarriages), and six times with donor eggs (resulting in two more miscarriages. With her Dutch family urging her to quit, and pressure from her Israeli in-laws for grandchildren, Renée answered an Internet ad, soliciting a complete stranger in a far away country to be a surrogate mother.

This is the true story of two women—Renée in Tel Aviv, Israel, and Jennefer in rural Montana—who get to know each other by writing emails, slowly graduating to making telephone calls and then finally meeting. Their surrogacy attempts take them to Kiev, Israel, Holland and the United States and shows the contrasting lifestyles of both women as well as that of the Ukraine. It is sometimes very emotional as the pendulum swings between hope and desperation. However, all the organization, coordination, medication and disappointments do not make them lose their cool or their sense of humor.


Having and Raising Children: Unconventional Families, Hard Choices, and the Social Good. Uma Narayan & Julia J Bartkowiak, eds. 1999. 218p. Pennsylvania State University Press.
From the Back Cover: As the term “family values” achieves prominence in the rhetoric of political debate, the social issues at the heart of today’s political controversies deserve to be studied in depth. This volume brings together a group of philosophers, political scientists, and legal scholars to explore a wide range of specific topics dealing with the legal, ethical, and political dimensions of familial relationships.

Topics addressed include the rights of unwed fathers, the nature of children’s autonomy, children’s rights to divorce their parents, parental rights with respect to medical treatment and religious education of children, surrogate parenting, same-sex parenting, and single-parent families. Collectively, the essays point out that many contemporary issues pertaining to the having and raising of children pose genuinely hard choices for public policy makers, for those who make and enforce the laws, and for citizens who would like to engage in informed and critical democratic debate on these issues.

Contributors are Anita Allen, Brenda Almond, Julia J. Bartkowiak, Ellen K. Feder, Shelley A.M. Gavigan, Hugh LaFolette, Uma Narayan, Lynn Pasquerelle, Laura M. Purdy, Mary Lyndon Shanley, and Iris Young.


About the Author: Uma Narayan is Associate Professor of Philosophy at Vassar College. She is the author of Disclosing Cultures: Identities, Traditions, and Third World Feminism (Routledge, 1997), which won the 1998 Victoria Schuck award of the American Political Science Association, and co-editor of Reconstructing Political Theory: Feminist Perspectives (Penn State, 1997), which received an honorable mention for the same award.

Julia J. Bartkowiak is Associate Professor of Philosophy at Clarion University in Pennsylvania.

Mary Lyndon Shanley is Professor of Political Science on the Margaret Stiles Halleck Chair at Vassar College. She is the author of Mothers and Families: Dilemmas for Feminism and the Law (Beacon Press, 1999) and Feminism, Marriage, and the Law in Victorian England (Princeton University Press, 1989). She is co-editor of Reconstructing Political Theory: Feminist Perspectives (Penn State Press, 1997) and Feminist Interpretations and Political Theory (Penn State Press, 1990).

Shelley Gavigan is Associate Professor of Law at Osgoode Hall Law School, York University, Toronto, Ontario, Canada. She is co-editor of The Politics of Abortion (Oxford University Press, 1992) and Regulating Sex: An Anthology of Commentaries on the Badhley and Fraser Reports (Simon Fraser University, 1986).


Compiler’s Note: See, particularly, Chapter 2: “Fathers’ Rights, Mothers’ Wrongs?: Reflections on Unwed Fathers’ Rights and Sex Equality” by Mary L. Shanley (pp. 39-63); Chapter 3: “Family Ties: Rethinking Parental Claims in the Light of Surrogacy and Custody” by Uma Narayan (pp. 65-86); and Chapter 4: “A Parent(ly) Knot: Can Heather Have Two Mommies?” by Shelley A.M. Gavigan (pp. 87-102).


How to Become a Gestational Surrogate Mother: A Step-by-Step Guide from Decision to Delivery. Rayven Perkins. 2010. 67p. (Kindle eBook) R Perkins.
Looking to become a gestational surrogate? Want information on how to become a surrogate mother? For those that choose to become a surrogate mother, a surrogate pregnancy can be a wonderful gift for both families. Lawyers, fees, testing...all demystified and defined.

Human Evolution, Reproduction, and Morality. Lewis Petrinovich. 1995. 339p. Plenum Press.
From the Publisher: Lewis Petrinovich has written an ambitious trilogy, in which he draws on concepts from evolutionary biology, neurophysiology, medicine, and cognitive science to develop a logical, consistent, and universally applicable view of bioethics. He bases his arguments on the assumption that there are sufficient empirical data to build a view of morality that respects the biological and cognitive nature of the human organism. In Human Evolution, Reproduction, and Morality, the first volume of the trilogy, Petrinovich addresses such issues in moral philosophy as contraception, abortion, infanticide, new reproductive technologies, and fetal tissues research. His aim is to provide a framework within which to consider the permissible use of humans by humans. Although he bases the discussion on extensive scholarly research, he does not hesitate to take a strong position on moral issues and to suggest “reasonable and moral” social policies based on the evidence he presents.

About the Author: Lewis Petrinovich is Professor Emeritus at the University of California. Riverside.


I Got Drunk at My Baby Shower: Our Successful Surrogacy Story. Susan Bowen & Heidi Thompson. 2013. 160p. Tate Publishing & Enterprises, LLC.
Susan Bowen is a cancer survivor who underwent a hysterectomy at twenty-nine. With her resilient and bubbly personality, she bounces right back. Devoting herself to her marriage, scrapbooking, and huge Halloween parties, she tucks away the idea of having children. But the dream of starting a family doesn’t diminish, and her quest to “find an oven” to hold her babies begins. Heidi Thompson is a workaholic juggling jobs and her children, hoping to provide the best life possible for her family while grabbing any opportunity to spend time with them. Gentle and reserved, she quietly takes inventory to strike a better balance in life. Never suffering morning sickness a day during her pregnancy, she investigates the possibility of becoming a surrogate. These two women, seemingly the antithesis of each other, unite for the purpose of bringing life to this earth. In their heartwarming “tell-all” memoir, they raise awareness of the surrogacy process. Amidst the detailed logistics, trials, and tribulations, they still manage to laugh and inspire each other along the way. Their positivity helps them realize everything happens for a reason, and before they know it, getting drunk at a baby shower becomes an exciting possibility.

Intimate Associations: The Law and Culture of American Families. J Herbie DiFonzo & Ruth C Stern. 2013. 234p. University of Michigan Press.
From the Back Cover: The rise in divorce, cohabitation, single parenthood, and same-sex partnerships, along with an increase in surrogacy, adoption, and assisted reproductive technologies, has led to many diverse configurations of families, or intimate associations. J. Herbie DiFonzo and Ruth C. Stern chart these trends over the past several decades and investigate their social, legal, and economic implications.

Drawing upon a wealth of social science data, they show that, by a number of measures, children of married parents fare better than children in a household formed by cohabiting adults. This is not to condemn nontraditional families, but to point out that society and the law do not yet adequately provide for their needs. The authors applaud the ways in which courts and legislatures are beginning to replace rigid concepts of marriage and parenthood with the more flexible concept of “functional” family roles. In the conclusion, they call for a legal system that can adapt to the continually changing reality of family life.


About the Author: J. Herbie DiFonzo is Professor of Law at the Maurice A. Deane School of Law at Hofstra.

Ruth C. Stern is an attorney and social worker. She has worked with families in crisis and represented parents and children in numerous family court proceedings.


The Journey of Same-Sex Surrogacy: Discovering Ultimate Joy. Jason Warner. 2013. 138p. Zygote Publishing.
From the Back Cover: Surrogacy is a gift that allows couples and individuals, who may not be able to have children traditionally, an opportunity to become parents. The Journey of Same-Sex Surrogacy gives others hope that they, too, can have a family. It’s a book about possibilities and dreams that details the trials along the way.

Jason Warner and his partner, deMarco, eagerly want to start the next chapter of their life together. They discover they could each possibly have a biological child that would also be a fraternal twin to the other through a surrogate mother using in vitro fertilization (IVF).

Although it’s a new field with few resources, Warner walks readers through this journey of discovery, sharing life-changing decisions, answering many questions and providing several resources while also including stories of others. He also offers valuable information on legal and medical issues that couples face when pursuing surrogacy.


About the Author: Among many interests, Jason Warner is best known as a singer-songwriter, author and entrepreneur. He and deMarco married in 2008 and have performed together for over a decade as the band “Jason & deMarco.” In 2011, Warner founded S.A.F.E. (Safe, Affirming, Family Environment), a non-profit with a mission to create a world where every heart has a home.

In The Journey of Same-Sex Surrogacy, he shares how despite all odds, he discovered the ultimate joy of parenthood.


The Law of Adoption and Surrogate Parenting. Irving J Sloan. 1988. 148p. (Legal Almanac Series No. 3) Oceana Publications.

Law, Policy and Reproductive Autonomy. Erin Nelson. 2013. 448p. Hart Publishing.
Reproductive choices are at once the most private and intimate decisions we make in our lives and, undeniably, also among the most public. Reproductive decision-making takes place in a web of overlapping concerns—political, ideological, socio-economic, and health—all of which engage the public and involve strongly held opinions and attitudes about appropriate conduct on the part of individuals and the State. Law, Policy and Reproductive Autonomy examines the idea of reproductive autonomy, noting that, in the attempt to look closely at the contours of the concept, we begin to see some uncertainty about its meaning and legal implications—about how to understand reproductive autonomy and how to value it. Both mainstream and feminist literature about autonomy contribute valuable insights into the meaning and implications of reproductive autonomy. The developing feminist literature on relational autonomy provides a useful starting point for a contextualized conception of reproductive autonomy that creates the opportunity for meaningful exercise of reproductive choice. With a contextualized approach to reproductive autonomy as a backdrop, the book traces the regulation of reproduction in US, Canadian, English, and Australian law and policy, argues that not all reproductive decisions necessarily demand the same level of deference in law and policy, and makes recommendations for reform. The book will be essential reading for all those interested in medical law and ethics generally, and the regulation of reproduction more specifically.

Love Child: Our Surrogate Baby. Rona Walker (pseudonym). 1990. 183p. Bloomsbury (UK).
From the Dust Jacket: Rona and Mark Walker were a happy young married couple. They had a nice home and good jobs, and Rona was pregnant. It looked as though their happiness would soon become complete. Then, in the space of a few hours, the idyll was shattered. Rona went into premature labour. Her baby died. In order to keep her alive, Rona was given a hysterectomy.

Love Child is about the death of that baby, the cremation ceremony and the bitter mourning. It is also about the birth of another baby, a baby who brought happiness back into Rona’s and Mark’s lives.

With Mark’s help, Rona slowly pulled herself out of despair and began to explore other ways in which they might have a child. Adoption seemed a possibility, but Rona was 32, and with a four-year waiting list she would be a borderline case because of her age.

Then they considered surrogacy.

Rona’s first tentative enquiries led to a willing surrogate mother and the need to make a quick decision on her suitability. Her subsequent insemination and pregnancy and the birth of a beautiful girl make up a tale of joy interspersed with moments of extreme anxiety. Would she give them the baby after the birth? And what about the law?

Love Child is an important story because surrogacy is on the increase and the law is painfully unclear. It is also, perhaps, the most moving story you will ever read—a story about the death of one child and the birth of another, both of them dearly loved.


About the Author: Rona Walker lives with her husband Mark and their daughter Kathleen somewhere in the United Kingdom. Depending on the progress, as this volume is being printed, of Rona’s and Mark’s efforts to adopt Kathleen, it may be possible to print their real names on the last page of this book.


Compiler’s Note: Apparently, the author got her wish.


Maternal-Fetal Conflicts, from Torts to Criminal Justice: Medical-Legal Study of 120 Cases. Naira R Matevosyan. 2013. 480p. CreateSpace.
In caring for a pregnant women, physicians consider the health of two biologically linked, yet individually viable patients. Viewed as an organic whole, the combined maternal-fetal benefit of proposed interventions is weighed against the combined burdens. The complexity of maternal-fetal conflicts (MFC) places the medical profession in a position where the provider’s determination in doing what is believed to be the best is seen as a denial of women’s autonomy or pro-fetus jurisprudence. In the common-law, the concept of MFC often becomes an indirect evidence or inter alia, an ever-resolving puzzle comprised of elements of crime or tort. The account set in this book is not to resonate, but to simplify our concerns or duties in resolving MFC. Stemmed of 650 references and packed in 35 chapters, this 480-page compilation briefs and analyzes 120 cases held in the United States, Canada, and the United Kingdom, as well as MFC scenarios—stratifying them into the clusters to present an obstetrical problem. Each chapter starts with a concise review of the medical-legal repository, followed by the case briefs inclusive for the I.R.A.C. (issue, rule, analysis, conclusion), precedents, dicta, concurring/dissent, dispositions or verdicts, remedies, reliefs, and reasoning pursuant to the Constitutional or statute enactments in British Commonwealth, the United States and District of Columbia, Canadian provinces and territories. Compiler’s Note: See, Chapter XXIV: Surrogacy: In Re: The Mother of Baby M (NJ) and R.R. v. M.H. and another (MA), pp. 304-312.

A Matter of Trust: The Guide to Gestational Surrogacy. Gail Dutton. 1997. 222p. Clouds Publishing.
Surrogacy doesn’t have to be a mystery. This book guides you through each step, from finding a surrogate, maintaining a strong relations with her through managing the legal, financial and ethical aspects of surrogacy.

You will learn:

• What a program coordinator offers and how to choose one.

• What to ask a surrogate before agreeing to work together.

• The latest medical advances, medications and their side effects.

• How to choose a fertility clinic and compare success rates.

• How embryos are stored and how cryopreservation affects them.

• What surrogacy costs, item by item.

• What should be included in contracts with a surrogate, program coordinator and psychologist.

• What to expect after your baby is born.

• How to say goodbye to the relationship with your surrogate.

• Surrogacy laws in the U.S. and 12 other nations.


About the Author: Gail Dutton has written more than 500 articles on science and business for U.S. magazines. She and her husband are the parents of identical twin boys, thanks to gestational surrogacy.


Maybe Baby?!!: My Downward Spiral (and Back Up!) Into the Madness of Trying to Conceive. Abby Newman. 2013. 84p. (Kindle eBook) BookBaby.
A million miles away from her dream of ever holding her baby in her arms—or so it seemed at the time. A straightforward, honest portrait of the process of trying to start a family through surrogacy—as if your best friend was explaining the details to you personally. Abby doesn’t hold back as she takes us with her through her journey that is anything but a smooth, straight line to having a baby. You can’t help but root for her as she faces the (almost) unattainable head on, bumping into one roadblock after another. An educating and enlightening story of how the strength of a mother’s love can conquer all.

Medical Tourism and Transnational Health Care. David Botterill, Guido Pennings & Tomas Mainil, eds. 2013. 258p. Palgrave Macmillan (UK).
From the Back Cover: Medicine and tourism have become separated in contemporary popular consciousness. The former implies anything but a pleasurable experience and the latter presumes a healthy disposition for participation, We argue that this popular conception of the separation of tourism and medicine ignores an historical continuity of lineage from the eighteenth-century pursuit of a ‘cure’ at resorts and spas to twentieth-century notions of holidays as worker welfare through to global patient mobility in the quest for cutting-edge medical interventions in so-called untreatable conditions. Disciplinary divisions within the academy have reinforced the separation between medicine and tourism in popular culture, but there is now an emergent challenge to rethink the medicine/tourism nexus. Under the influence of transnational health-care consumption, two very contrasting traditions of Western thought are now confronting one another. This book provides a comprehensive landscape of diverse research communities’ attempts to capture its implications for existing bodies of knowledge in selected aspects of medicine, medical ethics, health policy and management, and tourism studies.

About the Author: David Botterill is Visiting Research Fellow at the Centre for Tourism at the University of Westminster, UK, Professor Emeritus in the Welsh Centre for Tourism Research, Cardiff Metropolitan University, UK, and an associate of the NHTV University of Applied a Sciences Breda, The Netherlands. He has published extensively in tourism and leisure studies journals and recently co-edited Tourism and Crime: Key Issues (2010) and Key Concepts in Tourism Research (2012).

Guido Pennings is Professor of Ethics and Bioethics at Ghent University, Belgium. He is also Affiliate Lecturer in the Faculty of Politics, Psychology, Sociology and International Studies at Cambridge University, UK, and Guest Professor at the Faculty of Medicine and Pharmaceutical Sciences of the Free University Brussels, Belgium. He has published approximately 180 articles in international journals and books.

Tomas Mainil is Lecturer and Researcher at Breda University of Applied Sciences, The Netherlands. He is responsible for the Research Unit “Transnational health care in sending and receiving contexts” at the Centre for Cross-Cultural Understanding and is a researcher at the Research Centre for Longitudinal and Life Course Studies (CELLO), University of Antwerp, Belgium.


Miscellaneous Articles from Quran. Ijaz Chaudry. 2013. 80p. Lulu.com.
This book contains diverse selection of articles based on what the Quran teaches us. The author has been researching Islam for over 25 years, reading and assimilating the Quran every day. God reassures us in the Quran that it is fully detailed. Which means that all Islamic religious teachings are already bedded in the Quran? Last century it was found that the Quran has inbuilt mathematical verification system which authenticates the fact that Quran is the word of God, because if it was human authored book this mathematical structure would not exist. Since than many advances in usage of this Mathematical structure has come about. Some of the articles in this book use this modified Mathematical structures to unveil new information from the Quran. Article like “Fall and Rise of Romans” is one such article where the codes are used to inform the audience that Romans have risen again, but who are those Romans, to find out please read this article.

A Mother’s Story: The Truth About the Baby M Case. Mary Beth Whitehead, with Loretta Schwartz-Nobel. 1989. 220p. St Martin’s Press.
From the Dust Jacket: Mary Beth Whitehead never expected to become a household name and media figure when she decided to help a childless couple by signing a surrogacy contract. But when Mary Beth realized that she could not give her baby away and refused to do so, she literally became an object of public contempt. Public opinion was formed to a large extent by the behavior of the trial judge and the coverage of the case by the press, which created the perception of Mary Beth as an unfit, hysterical, and manipulative mother and the Sterns as an educated, affluent couple who would be ideal parents.

But there is another side to the story. Now, for the first time and in her own words, Mary Beth Whitehead finally reveals the truth about the Baby M case. If you joined in the public’s perception of Mary Beth and the Baby M case, this book will challenge your beliefs and may well change your mind.

Here is the moving story of a mother’s love for her baby daughter, the agony of their separation, and her courageous fight for her baby’s return. Mary Beth takes us from her childhood and early marriage to her idealistic decision to help an infertile couple have a child. We read of her heartbreaking realization that she has made a terrible mistake, her brutal treatment by the police who handcuff and throw her into a police car when she refuses to surrender her nursing infant, her shock and depression when her baby is finally seized by the police, and her anger when she eventually learns in court that Betsy Stern was not infertile. We experience firsthand the dialogue and searing drama of one of the most publicized and controversial trials of our generation. We witness Mary Beth’s public humiliation and the termination of all her parental rights. And we read of her vindication by the New Jersey Supreme Court.

This is the story that both the trial judge and the Sterns tried to keep out of the press. No matter how much you think you know about the Baby M case, A Mother’s Story will surprise and may even shock you. It is difficult to put down, and it is impossible to forget.


About the Author: Mary Beth Whitehead lives on Long Island, New York, with her new husband, Dean Gould, their son, and her two children from her first marriage. She has now been declared Melissa Stern’s legal mother and enjoys liberal, extended visitation.

Loretta Scuwartz-Nobel is a prize-winning investigative journalist who frequently reports on the problems of the disadvantaged. She is the author of Starving in the Shadow of Plenty and the Edgar-nominated Engaged to Murder: The Inside Story of the Main Line Murders.


My Journey to the Son: The Surrogacy Road. Roberto A De Souza. 2013. 164p. CreateSpace.
My Journey to the Son: The Surrogacy Road was based on the true story of Roberto A. De Souza, a single man going against all odds for a chance to have his biological child using a gestational surrogate in India and an egg donor from the United States. During his journey, he learned that the road of surrogacy wasn’t an easy path to walk on, as he was led to believe in the beginning, but in despite of all obstacles, he kept going on in his journey, to find out that in the end of the road there is a fork, if you go right you get to have pure joy in your life, your dreams become true, you have a baby, but if you go left, you are doomed, there is no baby, sometimes there is no more money or psychological power to go back to the road and start it over and the bad news about this fork in the road, that no surrogacy company tells you is: You do not get to choose if you take right or left. The left part of the road is pure stress, cruel and emotionally destructive.

My Seven Gifts: A Surrogate’s Story. Tawni Rae. 2014. 140p. Two Harbors Press.
Ever wondered just what it takes to become a surrogate mother? Author Tawni Rae was once told that she would never be able to have children. Little could she have imagined that she would eventually give birth to not only three babies of her own, but also seven surrogate infants. And now, Rae has chosen to share her journey in My Seven Gifts: A Surrogate’s Story. From meeting the intended parents, to the implantation procedure and beyond, Rae gives readers an intimate look at what it takes for a woman to carry a baby that is not her biological child. My Seven Gifts draws readers into the one woman’s courage and determination. Along the way, Rae overcomes overwhelming difficulties and even challenges her own prejudices when she makes the decision to carry a baby for a same-sex couple. Why would a woman risk her health and undergo such an emotional process to help families she barely knows? In Rae’s own words, she made that choice “Because I wanted to help another woman become a mom.”

Namaste Baby: A Journey to Surrogacy in India. Susan Clare. 2013. 304p. Matador (UK).
Namaste Baby is the heartwarming tale behind Susan Clare’s journey through recurrent miscarriage and the complexities of Indian surrogacy Susan had always believed that getting married and having children was not for her. That all changed when she met Chris and fell head over heels in love for the first time. After a whirlwind romance and a marriage proposal, they were overjoyed when a pregnancy test returned a positive result. During the honeymoon, Susan lost the baby. Even with the support of a specialist, and a daily cocktail of drugs, Susan miscarried twice more. Susan and Chris explored other ways to have a child. Surrogacy in India soon became the preferred route. The couple flew to a clinic in Gujarat. Five fertilized eggs were implanted into Vimla and Susan and Chris returned to London to await the outcome. The news was positive—Vimla was expecting twins. All further reports were good. Susan and Chris were therefore shocked when they returned to India seven weeks early to hear that the babies had already been born. For the following month an endless series of health scares threatened to destroy their dream. The babies battled though, and finally the day came when they could leave the hospital. What followed was a battle with bureaucracy so that they could finally return to England as a family. This book is an honest account of Susan’s heartache after miscarriage and her desperate yearning to be a mother. It explores the moral and ethical arguments surrounding surrogacy and, finally, embraces her joy of holding her children in her arms. Susan’s surrogacy story has been featured in The Daily Mail, The Sun and The Evening Standard.

The New Kinship: Constructing Donor-Conceived Families. Naomi R Cahn. 2013. 240p. (Families, Law, and Society) New York University Press.
From the Dust Jacket: No federal law in the United States requires that egg or sperm donors or recipients exchange any information with the offspring that result from the donation. The parents may know the donor’s hair color, height, IQ, college, and profession; they may even have heard the donor’s voice. But they don’t know the donor’s name, nor do they have access to their medical history, or other information that might play a key role in a child’s development. And, until recently, donor-conceived offspring often didn’t know that one of their biological parents was a donor. But the secrecy surrounding the use of donor eggs and sperm is changing. And as it does, increasing numbers of parents and donor-conceived offspring are searching for others who share the same biological heritage. When donors, recipients, and “donor offspring” find each other, they create new forms of families.

The New Kinship details how families are made and how bonds are created between families in the brave new world of reproductive technology. Naomi Cahn, a nationally recognized expert on reproductive technology and the law, shows how these new kinship bonds dramatically exemplify the ongoing cultural change in how we think about family. The issues Cahn explores in this book will resonate with anyone—and everyone—who cares about the formation and shape of family and community.


About the Author: Naomi Cahn is the Harold H. Greene Professor of Law at George Washington University Law School. Her areas of expertise include family law, reproductive technology, and adoption law. She has written numerous law review articles on family law and other subjects, and has coauthored several books, including Red Families v. Blue Families (with Professor June Carbone), Test Tube Families (NYU Press 2009), Families by Law: An Adoption Reader (NYU Press 2004, and Confinements: Fertility and Infertility in Contemporary Culture (1997) (with Professor Helena Michie).


By the Same Author: Families By Law: An Adoption Reader (with Joan Heifetz Hollinger; 2004, New York University Press); Test Tube Families: Why the Fertility Market Needs Legal Regulation (2009, New York University Press); and Finding Our Families: A First-of-Its-Kind Book for Donor-Conceived People and Their Families (with Wendy Kramer; 2013, Avery), among others.


On the Problem of Surrogate Parenthood: Analyzing the Baby M Case. Herbert Richardson, ed. 1987. 134p. (Symposium Series, Vol 25) The Edwin Mellen Press.
From the Editor: The essays in this volume were written independently of one another in May, 1987, the month following Judge Sorkow’s decision in the Baby “M” case. Because the trial itself, as well as its final outcome, divided members of the women’s movement as well as legal and religious communities, it seemed a propitious moment when scholars might contribute to clarifying the issues. For this reason, I invited a number of experts in different fields to offer their reflections. Here is the result.

The two chief issues in the Baby “M” case were the legality of the surrogate contract and the custody of the child born from the surrogate relationship. Not surprisingly, therefore, the essays in this volume tend to focus on one or the other of these of two issues. A background problem, in several of the essays, is the legitimacy or desirability of the surrogate parenthood per se. Therefore, I have arranged the papers in this order of topics.

1) The first essay, by Professor Henry Butzel, provides a survey of the essential facts of the Baby ““M” case and explains why Judge Sorkow had to deal with the two issues of the legitimacy of the contract and the custody decision together (though he had wanted to deal with them separately).

2) The second essay, by Professor Patricia Werhane, focuses on he issue of surrogate contracts and contends that they are not valid.

3) The third essay, by Professor Harriet Baber, presents arguments to support the validity of surrogacy contracts—the contrary view to that of the preceding essay.

4) The fourth essay, by Professor Barbara Andolsen, moves beyond the discussion of the validity of the surrogate contract to a discussion of the historical and social changes shaping our modern notion of motherhood. She contends that “any acceptable policy to regulate surrogate contracts would have to include a provision guaranteeing a period of time after birth in which the surrogate could reconsider her decision to surrender the child.”

5) The fifth essay, by Professors Jane Ollenburger and John Hamlin, focuses specifically upon the issue of the economic exploitation of motherhood as a form of unpaid labor.

6) The sixth essay, by Professor Michael Hill, broadens the discussion immensely by introducing cross cultural considerations.

7) The seventh essay, by Professor Mary Jo Deegan, presupposes the scheme of “multiple parenthood” outlined above[, but] argues that we do not have—and we desperately need—appropriate social rituals so that those who fulfill the surrogate mother role are properly acknowledged.

8) The eighth essay, by Professor Michael Ryan, introduces the idea of “religious” (as distinct from “secular”) motivations for surrogate motherhood.

9) The ninth essay, by Professor Herbert Richardson, argues that the dominant tendency of our society is to interpret procreation as an activity whereby parents “produce” children as if they were things.

10) The tenth essay, by Professors Marcus Ford and Sandra Lubarsky, offers a critique of various notions of the family. They argue that, in that last analysis, what is most important is the “organic family, that is, the web of human relationships which include bonds with persons with whom one shares no “blood.”


Our Bodies, Whose Property?. Anne Phillips. 2013. 202p. Princeton University Press.
From the Publisher: No one wants to be treated like an object, regarded as an item of property, or put up for sale. Yet many people frame personal autonomy in terms of self-ownership, representing themselves as property owners with the right to do as they wish with their bodies. Others do not use the language of property, but are similarly insistent on the rights of free individuals to decide for themselves whether to engage in commercial transactions for sex, reproduction, or organ sales. Drawing on analyses of rape, surrogacy, and markets in human organs, Our Bodies, Whose Property? challenges notions of freedom based on ownership of our bodies and argues against the normalization of markets in bodily services and parts. Anne Phillips explores the risks associated with metaphors of property and the reasons why the commodification of the body remains problematic. What, she asks, is wrong with thinking of oneself as the owner of one’s body? What is wrong with making our bodies available for rent or sale? What, if anything, is the difference between markets in sex, reproduction, or human body parts, and the other markets we commonly applaud? Phillips contends that body markets occupy the outer edges of a continuum that is, in some way, a feature of all labor markets. But she also emphasizes that we all have bodies, and considers the implications of this otherwise banal fact for equality. Bodies remind us of shared vulnerability, alerting us to the common experience of living as embodied beings in the same world. Examining the complex issue of body exceptionalism, Our Bodies, Whose Property? demonstrates that treating the body as property makes human equality harder to comprehend.

About the Author: Anne Phillips is the Graham Wallas Professor of Political Science at the London School of Economics and Political Science. Her many books include The Politics of Presence and Multiculturalism without Culture (Princeton).


Our Journey: One Couple’s Guide to U.S. Surrogacy. Richard Westoby. 2013. 136p. CreateSpace.
This book is a fascinating personal story that describes from start to finish the journey of a couple based in the U.K. undertaking IVF and surrogacy in the U.S. Written as their story it is also a detailed step by step guide that aims to help those starting out on the road to parenthood via surrogacy. Each chapter is a different step of that journey and it gives the reader an incredibly detailed insight into what to expect along the way. The chapters end with very practical questions and tips that the reader should be asking. This book raises pertinent questions targeted specifically for intended parents to analyse what should be done and when. In highlighting certain issues it enables those embarking on the surrogacy journey to become much more informed about the issues that will come up. Although this book is about two men creating their family in the U.S., it actually looks at the thought process and decisions required around IVF and surrogacy. It has been written in a way that anyone considering surrogacy can learn more about the journey and hopefully can gain insights into what to expect. It has been written so that the chapters are virtually stand-alone; if one part is not relevant it can be skipped and the next chapter read. The aims of the book are to demystify surrogacy and to simplify the decision making involved at every step. But the real goal of this book is to help others have a single unbiased reference guide on the whole IVF and surrogacy process.

Pathways to Parenthood: The Ultimate Guide to Surrogacy. Stacy Ziegler. 2004. 101p. Brown Walker Press.
From the Back Cover: Pathways to Parenthood is a how-to guide to surrogacy. It covers gestational surrogacy via in vitro fertilization (IVF) as well as traditional surrogacy via artificial insemination. The mystery that surrounds surrogacy is demystified and everything is broken down into layman’s terms. This book will take you from deciding if surrogacy is the right path for you, to contact with your surrogate after the delivery--and everything in between. You will learn about the legal, medical, as well as the emotional aspects of choosing surrogacy as your pathway to parenthood. You will be given the pros and cons of using an agency as well as going about it on your own.

About the Author: Stacy Ziegler is a two-time gestational surrogate with experience in both agency and independent arrangements. In addition, she has also held a position with a very reputable and established surrogacy and egg donation agency based out of southern California.


Planning Parenthood: Strategies for Success in Fertility Assistance, Adoption, and Surrogacy. Rebecca A Clark, Michelle Murphy, Gloria Richard-Davis, Jill Hayes & Katherine Pucheu Theall. 2009. 237p. Johns Hopkins University Press.
From the Back Cover: Planning to become a parent is a profound experience, at times agonizing, hopeful, stressful, and joyous. Not everyone is able to become pregnant, however. When the journey to parenthood proves challenging, Planning Parenthood will guide prospective parents through the complicated mazes of assisted reproduction and adoption with essential information about:

• the requirements of fertility assistance, surrogacy, and adoption

• the medical, financial, emotional, and legal risks for each option

• the personal issues prospective parents need to consider when deciding on a path to parenthood

These considerations are illustrated with personal stories of real people navigating the often long and emotional road to parenthood—from in vitro fertilization to egg donation to surrogacy to adoption. The professional guidance and inspiration in this unique resource will encourage and empower prospective parents all along the way.


About the Author: Rebecca A. Clark, M.D., Ph.D., is a professor of medicine at Louisiana State University Health Sciences Center and coauthor, with Dr. Hayes, of A Woman’s Guide to Living with HIV Infection, also published by Johns Hopkins.

Gloria Richard-Davis, M.D., FACOG, is chair and professor in the Department of Obstetrics and Gynecology at Meharry Medical College, associate director of the Center for Women’s Health Research, and a board-certified reproductive endocrinology and infertility specialist.

Jill Hayes, Ph.D., is a clinical neuropsychologist in private practice and an adjunct associate professor of clinical psychiatry at Louisiana State University Health Sciences Center.

Michelle Murphy, J.D., is an attorney in private practice.

Katherine Pucheu Theall, Ph.D., is an assistant professor at the Louisiana State University Health Sciences Center’s School of Public Health.


Principles and Practice of Assisted Reproductive Technology: Volume I: Infertility. Kamini A Rao, Howard Carp, & Robert Fischer, eds. Foreword by Alan H Decherney. 2013. 892p. Jaypee Brothers Medical Publishers (India).
From the Back Cover: This volume of Principles and Practice of Assisted Reproductive Technology is a well-illustrated publication which provides concise yet comprehensive practical information on the modern-day approach to the diagnosis and treatment of infertility. It starts from basic principles of reproductive physiology, before moving on to the evaluation and management of the infertile couple, and then describes and explains the full armory of ART from ovulation induction, its complications to the outcome following ART. Also, some recent advances, like cryopreservation of ovarian tissue and oocytes, and endometrial stem cells with its clinical applications, have been dealt with in detail.

About the Author: Kamini A Rao has been the President of he Indian Society for Assisted Reproduction during the years 2006-2008 and of The Federation of Obstetric & Gynaecological Societies of India in the year 2000. She is a Pioneer of Assisted Reproduction fraternity in India. She is the Founder Director of Milann—The Fertility Centre formerly known as BACC, which has an ongoing IVF program and a success rate comparable worldwide.

Dr. Kamini A. Rao is the Founder and Editor-in-Chief of two prestigious indexed journals—The Journal of Human Reproductive Sciences, a journal indexed with PubMed and the International Journal of Infertility & Fetal Medicine. She is academically oriented and has authored over 30 books of which The Infertility Manual, The Laboratory Manual of ART, The Andrology Manual and Endoscopy in Infertility are aimed at super specialists and are hugely popular. She has brought out a number of books targeted at students, the prominent among them being the Undergraduate Textbook of Obstetrics & Gynecology.

Howard Carp is Professor, Department of Obstetrics and Gynecology, Sheba Medical Center, Tel Hashomer, and Sackler School of Medicine, Tel Aviv University, Israel. He has many clinical interests including: Ectopic pregnancy, Implantation and Infertility. He has recently edited two books: A Recurrent Pregnancy Loss, Causes Controversies and Treatment and The Infertility Manual (together with Kamini A. Rao). He has published over 70 original research articles, 36 review articles and 6 chapters in books. He has been invited to lecture in many parts of the world. Professor Carp has taken a special interest In recurrent miscarriage, other forms of pregnancy loss and infertility in general.

Robert Fischer is the Founder and Medical Director of the IVF unit at the MVZ Fertility Center, Hamburg, which is one of the largest and leading private IVF centers in Germany since 1983. He has numerous publications in national and international scientific journals, book articles as well as has given various lectures in national and international Conferences. He is the active member of he Americen Society of Reproductive Medicine (ASRM). He is the Founding member of the European Society of Human Reproduction (ESHRE), past member of the Advisory Committee of ESHRE and member of the Scientific Committee of Serono Symposia International Foundation (SSIF).


Principles of Oocyte and Embryo Donation. Mark V Sauer, ed. 1998. 367p. (Second edition published in 2013) Springer.
The versatility of oocyte and embryo donation has proven to be extremely valuable to both patients and doctors engaged in reproductive medicine. Originally thought to be applicable only to a rather small subset of infertile women, today busy practices commonly recommend the procedure and it is estimated that nearly all of the 400 or more IVF programs in the United States provide these services. Oocyte and embryo donation has established itself as a mainstay procedure within assisted reproductive care, and the breadth, depth and complexity of practice is deserving of focused attention.

Much has changed within the field of oocyte and embryo donation since the publication of the first edition of Principles of Oocyte and Embryo Donation in 1998, thus the need for a completely updated and more expansive text. The second edition of this book provides an overview of the major issues affecting men and women engaged in the practice of oocyte and embryo donation. A primary emphasis has been placed on defining the standards of practice that have evolved over the past 30 years, clearly stating the outcomes expected from adhering to these established protocols. Details of both the basic science and the clinical medicine are presented together and attention is also focused on the non-reproductive aspects inherent to this unique method of assisted reproduction that involves opinions from lawyers, ethicists, mental health care professionals and theologians.

Oocyte and embryo donation requires a working knowledge of the medicine, the law and the ethics that underlies its foundation. This book is intended to serve as a complete and comprehensive reference for all health care professionals that provide services related to egg donation, reproductive endocrinologists, obstetrician-gynecologists, and fellows and residents entering the fertility field.


About the Author: Mark V. Sauer, M.D., is a pioneer in the field of donor oocyte and embryo transfer and has been responsible for advancing the field of reproductive medicine through several of his projects.

He is principally known for his work in the field of donor oocyte and embryo transfer and achieved the world’s first donor egg pregnancies in menopausal women.

Dr. Sauer is currently Professor of Obstetrics and Gynecology and Program Director of the Division of Reproductive Endocrinology at Columbia University Medical Center, New York. He has served on the editorial board of several medical journals and has authored more than 300 peer review articles related to Reproductive Endocrinology and infertility.


The Pursuit of Family: How One Couple, Two Judges, and Three Wombs Made a Family of Six. Julie Aguas. 2012. 280p. Blossom Press.
Julie’s life story was never supposed to be interesting enough to move beyond the pages of her diary. The vision of her future was simple. There was a suburban house, a couple of kids, and a minivan shuttling to piano lessons and soccer practice. Nowhere in that vision were there D&C procedures, baby sellers, or shrieking, drug-exposed infants. Never did she picture herself crossing the Mexican border to receive an FDA-banned procedure or watching her embryos being placed in another woman’s body. As her imagined world crumbled, the worst shock of all was the overwhelming sense that she no longer belonged to any world. The Pursuit of Family was born out of Julie’s desire to prevent others from feeling the unbearable isolation she felt. In this brutally honest memoir, she navigates through the agony, obsession, and loss of identity that transforms the infertile person. She offers infertility sufferers the sense of connection she longed for and a wealth of information about nearly every aspect of the struggle to build a family. For those who are not struggling with infertility, her story provides a glimpse into what millions of their fellow human beings, maybe even their closest loved ones are going through.

Queer Impact and Practices. Kathleen O’Mara & Liz Morrish, eds. 2013. 367p. (Queering Paradigms III) Peter Lang International Academic Publishers (Switzerland).
From the Publisher: Queer Impact and Practices brings together chapters arising from the third annual Queering Paradigms conference. Queer Theory is still evolving and extending the range of its enquiry. It maps out new territories via radical contestations of the categories of gender and sexuality. This approach de-centers assumptions of heteronormativity, but at the same time critiques a new homonormativity. This book incorporates the work of queer theorists and queer activists who are seeking new boundaries to cross as well as new disciplines and social relations to queer. The sections of this book interrogate the impact of Queer Theory in studies of culture, nationalism, ethnography, linguistics, psychology, intimacy and activism. Chapters address contemporary theorizing about gay citizenship and “homonationalism” as well as a critique of gay visibility. Other topics include the symbolics of queer subversion and transgression in performers who transgress gender and sexuality codes. Queer activists extend their analysis into the world of punk, Buddhist religious teaching and Native Studies. This book demonstrates that Queer Theory, as well as being a disposition, is now deployed by many researchers as a legitimate framework of analysis that questions many of the categories, constructs and relationships we encounter in twenty-first century society.

About the Author: Kathleen O’Mara is Professor of African and Islamic History, State University of New York (SUNY) at Oneonta, USA. Her recent research examines LGBT social practices and sexual identity in Ghana.

Liz Morrish is Principal Lecturer in Linguistics at Nottingham Trent University, UK. Her research interests combine Queer Theory, linguistics and Cultural Studies.

Aleardo Zanghellini is Professor of Law and Social Theory at the University of Reading. Until 2010, he was employed at Macquarie University, in Sydney, Australia, where a quantitative study identified him as one of Australia’s top researchers in law. To this day, Aleardo continues to serve as a reviewer for the Australian Research Council.


Compiler’s Note: See, particularly, “Gay Surrogacy and Tahitian Adoption: How Queer is Queer Parenthood?” by Aleardo Zanghellini (pp. 305-320).


Raising Triplets: Our Journey from Surrogacy through Age Two. Debby Bedell. 2013. 280p. CreateSpace.
Raising Triplets was written for the parents and families of multiples who find themselves in need of helpful tips as you raise your babies from the age of 0-2 years old. It contains helpful information, survival tips, poems, “must haves” and much more. This is a world that is fast paced, exhilarating, exhausting, challenging and rewarding all at once. The story takes you through our journey from surrogacy through age 2. It is a must for parents of triplets and can be useful for twins as well.

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