Mary Beth Whitehead

Surrogate parenting has become commonplace in America and other countries. It has helped countless numbers of couples become parents. But it took until the late 1980s for an American Court to rule on the legal validity of surrogate motherhood. It came in the case of an infant girl dubbed Baby M.  A woman named Mary Beth Whitehead gave birth to baby M, after her eggs were fertilized by a man named Bill Stern. He and his wife Elizabeth for unable to have a child of their own. The trouble arose when Whitehead, after giving birth, decided she wanted to keep the baby. A protracted court battle ensued, and ultimately the Sterns won custody of the baby.