In March 1986, Mary Beth Whitehead and her husband went to a New Jersey hospital and kidnapped a baby girl. She had given birth to the girl three days earlier. They took the infant to Florida, launching the first case examining the legitimacy of surrogate motherhood in America. Four decades later, surrogacy is so out of control that it risks being banned in the U.S. and around the world.
Whitehead had signed an agreement with William and Elizabeth Stern. She agreed to be artificially inseminated with William’s sperm, using her own eggs, carry any pregnancy to term, and then relinquish her parental rights to the Sterns. She was to be paid $10,000. When the baby was born, she changed her mind and decided to keep the girl — thus the escape to Florida.
