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George Constantinou and Farid Ali
are part of a growing group
using surrogate mothers to have children -- gay men.
-I no longer feel that it's a unique story.
I'm a father now, facing the same challenges
as any other parent, gay or straight.
-Yeah.
-George and Farid use an egg donor,
and the twins were carried by a surrogate, Jeni Denhof,
who already had two girls of her own.
-This is a dream for women,
to be able to give this gift and have that feeling,
knowing I provided a family for someone.
-But it was complicated.
Paid surrogacy is illegal in New York,
where George and Farid live.
-Does your cat say, "Meow"?
-So they found Jeni, who lives in Colorado, where it is not.
Surrogacy laws vary widely from state to state,
the legacy of the dramatic fight over a baby girl
born in New Jersey in 1986.
She was known as Baby M.
-It's a case that might test the wisdom of a Solomon.
-It was the first case of its kind,
pitting a surrogate mother, Mary Beth Whitehead,
who bore the baby for a $10,000 fee,
against the child's father, William Stern.
-When she was born, she just looked so much like my daughter,
and to just give her away for $10,000, I couldn't do it.
-Nobody seems to be concerned about fathers' rights.
Fathers have dreams, too.
-Stern provided the sperm and, along with his wife, Betsy,
hired Whitehead to conceive and carry the child.
-The contract Mrs. Whitehead signed
stated she would not try to keep the baby.
-When she gave birth, she did surrender the child,
and she was so distraught, she did nothing but cry.
-The Sterns had the baby for several days.
Then Mrs. Whitehead came back very upset
and said she needed to have the child
for a few days back in her house again,
and then she would bring the baby back to the Sterns.
-But when she didn't come back,
the Sterns got a court to order Whitehead and her husband
to return the baby.
-Police officers showed up at her home,
and there was some confusion,
and she did what I think any woman would do,
any mother who loved their child.
-While the police were there,
she passes the baby out the window to him.
They both escape and flee to Florida.
-Whitehead had been hiding in Florida for 87 days
when police found her at her mother's house
and took the infant away.
-Desperate to keep the baby, Whitehead turned to the media.
-They stole my baby, and they're letting them get away with it!
-She had many a press conference
talking about surrogacy and her child and this was her child
and they were taking her child away from her,
and it started to capture the press and the public.
-It was the first contested surrogacy case
in United States history.
Courts had never seen it.
The media had never seen it.
The public had never seen it.
-Throughout the trial,
the press was fascinated with the story
and the issues it raised, from income disparity...
-The father, Stern, a biochemist,
married to a pediatrician,
pitted against the mother, Whitehead,
a high-school dropout married to a garbage collector.
-...to potential exploitation of women.
-Mary Beth and Sara. Mary Beth and Sara.
-We don't want to see surrogate mothering
being sort of a cottage industry for the poor women of America.
-Ultimately, the case raised questions
about how modern families are made.
-One out of seven married couples in the United States
cannot have children because they are infertile,
and adoption is no longer a viable process in this country.
-There's nothing in the best interests
of any of these children
that they be separated from their natural mothers.
-Inside the courtroom,
testimony included a dramatic tape recording
of Mary Beth Whitehead calling Bill Stern from Florida.
-No, Mary Beth. No, Mary Beth. Wait, wait, wait.
-That's what I'm gonna do, Bill. [ Baby crying ]
-Please, Mary Beth. -Don't cry.
-Lawyers for the Sterns introduced the tapes,
saying they show Mrs. Whitehead is too unstable to win custody.
Her lawyers said they only show how much she cared.
-Good evening. Baby M goes to her father.
-In the end, the judge gave custody to the Sterns
and ruled for the first time
that a surrogacy contract could be enforced.
-I'm on my way to the appellate division right now.
-But on appeal, the New Jersey Supreme Court disagreed.
-They had not much of a problem about the issue of custody,
but the question is, "What do we do about surrogacy?"
-Let's assume that the surrogacy agreement
is declared void.
-The court found the exchange of money for a child illegal,
perhaps criminal, and potentially degrading to women.
-To my shock -- shock --
7-0 it was voted not enforceable.
They said, "We're not going to allow this
to happen in this state."
-But the justices also ruled the trial court was wrong
in terminating all the natural mother's parental rights,
including visitation privileges.
-I want to be able to see her,
but I don't need her in my home to love her.
-She did not get full custody,
but she won a battle
that preserved the rights of other women
which influenced law around the world.
-This was the beginning of a very big step
in the world of family,
and the law had totally failed to keep up with it at all.
No one had really looked at it,
considered it, put together what to do about it.
-Mrs. Whitehead! [ Indistinct shouting ]
-Even after the decision, the country remained fascinated
with the story of Mary Beth Whitehead
and Baby M.
A made-for-TV movie was watched by millions.
-[ Crying ] Mommy, no! Don't take me, Mommy!
-And states began passing laws
outlawing or limiting paid surrogacy.
-Michigan today became the first state to outlaw
paying a woman a profit to be a surrogate mother.
-Visions of Mary Beth Whitehead
screaming, "Give me back my baby!"
frightened people from this concept
and made them turn away,
but it didn't stop people
from having children through surrogacy,
and, in fact, if anything, surrogacy grew after 1988.
-It grew in part because of a new development
in reproductive technology -- in vitro fertilization.
-Doctors remove eggs from the woman's fallopian tubes.
The eggs are mixed with the husband's sperm
to allow the fertilization to occur outside the body.
The resulting embryo is placed back in the woman's uterus.
-This technique also allowed a surrogate
to carry a baby produced with another woman's egg.
-The surrogate mother had no genetic link to the child.
-In 1990, in California, surrogate mother Anna Johnson
sued for custody of a baby conceived in a laboratory
using the egg and sperm of the intended parents.
-But Judge Parslow ruled she was simply a host,
in effect, a foster parent.
-Very quickly, there was a switch
to the nongenetic surrogacy
where the effort was, "Well, let's try to get around
the opinion of the New Jersey Supreme Court."
-At least 99% is now gestational or egg donor surrogacy.
-Surrogacy, it's almost doubled in the past six years.
-The tide of public opinion began to turn...
-Like real-life storks, surrogates are bringing babies
to an increasing number of families all across the country.
-...as celebrities started coming forward
about their use of donor eggs and surrogates.
-He's here, and he's perfect.
That's what Kim Kardashian has to say
about her and Kanye's new baby boy, who was born via surrogate.
-No one keeps track of how many surrogate babies are born.
-I'm quite comfortable
in saying it's several thousand a year children being born.
-George and Farid met Jeni through an agency,
Circle Surrogacy,
where she also worked after the twins were born.
Founder John Weltman says finding surrogates
is surprisingly easy.
-Every month, between 600 and 1,000 women
apply to our program to be a surrogate.
-Jeni says she never worried about giving the babies up,
nor did she feel exploited.
She said she was aware of the clear medical risk
of carrying twins.
-You have to be okay recognizing,
"This is not my baby, and, yes, I'm offering my body."
They go over all the various things that can happen,
including risking your life.
Most surrogates, we know the risks that we're taking.
-Family, this is Jeni.
Jeni, this is our friends and family.
-Hi! -Hey!
-That was quite an emotional journey for her,
as well as physical.
She got to be a rock star for nine months
to these two gay guys in New York.
-We were not in need financially.
That being said, I never like to downplay the fact that,
yes, I was compensated to carry these kids,
and it helped our family.
-Jeni's fee, around $30,000,
was just a small part of the entire cost.
-The surrogate, the egg donation,
the fertility clinics, the surrogate agency,
the trips back and forth, I'd say at least $120,000.
-Because it's so expensive, some intended parents
try to find surrogates themselves online.
Others turn to a global marketplace of clinics
where the costs of surrogacy are often lower.
-By some estimates, prospective parents
spend more than $1 billion each year hiring egg donors,
surrogate mothers, and brokers all over the world.
-Even as it grows, the surrogacy business in this country
remains largely unregulated.
Unscrupulous operators have made off with clients' money
and created surrogate babies just for sale.
-I think it is the Wild West in surrogacy
because there's no required license.
You don't have to be a lawyer.
You don't have to be a social worker or psychologist.
People are entering this, some of whom are very honorable
and some of whom are not so honorable.
I'd like to see regulation take place.
-But regulation requires laws,
which many states have never implemented,
and that may be the most lasting consequence of Baby M.
-There's nothing resolved about the question
of whether we as a people are going to embrace surrogacy.
-Baby M set back surrogacy
that everybody just doesn't want to touch it.
Legislators are very,
very concerned about whichever way they go,
it offends somebody the other way.
It's a very highly controversial topic.
-A few states ban paid surrogacy.
Others allow it in certain circumstances,
and many have no legal framework at all.
In part under pressure from gay men,
some states have recently lifted restrictions,
including New Jersey, where Baby M was born.
-What comes next after one gets married?
Kids, so that's the logical next step.
There needs to be, you know,
surrogacy equality in all states.
-As for Baby M herself, Melissa Stern is now an adult.
At 18, she terminated her legal relationship
with Mary Beth Whitehead
and was adopted by the woman who raised her, Betsy Stern.
-She went to college. She went to graduate school.
She met a man. She married that man.
Melissa has done beautifully.
-The Sterns and Melissa
have shunned publicity all these years,
ever since their case set off a debate about parenthood
that has yet to be fully resolved.
-The benefit to surrogacy is biological ties to your child,
and it's just gonna get bigger and bigger
because the bottom line is, people want kids.
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