Opinion: Paying gestational carriers should be legal in all states
Every year, hundreds of thousands of babies are born in the U.S. using assisted reproductive technologies, a multibillion-dollar industry that is controversial and largely unregulated.
One of the controversies involves the use of paid gestational carriers, women who agree to carry a fertilized embryo, created from another woman’s egg, give birth, and give the baby to its parents. This is different from tradition (or genetic) surrogates, who provide both their own eggs and their own wombs. Gestational surrogacy now constitutes 95% of all surrogacy in the U.S.
State laws about arrangements for gestational carriers vary widely and are in flux. This kind of surrogacy is in 10 states; prohibited but with various
