1976 - First Surrogacy Agreement
Lawyer Noel Keane drafted and negotiated the first legal surrogacy agreement. The agreement was for traditional surrogacy and the surrogate was not compensated for her services. Keane has helped ~ 600 children be born through surrogacy during his career.
1978 - First IVF Baby Born
The first baby born using IVF was Louise Brown.
1980- First Compensated Surrogacy
Elizabeth Kane [alias] was the first women who agreed to be a surrogate mother for financial compensation. The agreement was for $10,000. However, Ms. Kane was reluctant to part with the child which led to many legal complications and was eventually denied custody of the child due to the contract she had signed with the intended parents.
1985- First Gestational surrogacy
Detroit housewife Shannon Boff was hired to carry a baby for intended parents. Boff had no genetic relationship to the baby, and she stated she was "the world's first fetal baby-sitter."
1986- "Baby M"
The first contested custody case in America related to surrogacy. The traditional surrogate kidnapped Baby M for 87 days after delivery. The intended parents turned to the legal system for resolution. The case went through multiple years of litigation and was eventually appealed to the New Jersey supreme court. Courts use this traditional surrogacy case as a precedent that the birth mother always has rights to the child. ABC created a tv miniseries titled "Baby M" in 1988 that chronicled some of the drama.
1990- Johnson v. Calvert [California]
Johnson, the gestational surrogate mother, refused to give up the child, who was not genetically related to her back to the Calverts. The California courts affirmed that the intended parents where the "genetic, biological and natural" father and mother, that Anna had no "parental" rights to the child." The court also terminated the order allowing visitation. Calvert appealed from the trial court's judgment. The Court of Appeal for the Fourth District, Division Three, affirmed. This firmly set precedent that gestational surrogacy contracts are legal and enforceable, that the Uniform Parentage Act is also applicable to gestational surrogacy agreements, and that the true mother is the woman according to the surrogacy agreement that intends to create and raise the child. See Full Article
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