Sanford M. Benardo, the founder of the Northeast Assisted Fertility Group, wishes to expand the “reproductive rights” of those who are infertile, unable to carry a child, suffering from cancer—or are men. He paints a very sympathetic portrait of such “intended parents” and claims that most “surrogates” are well educated, middle-class women who are “not wealthy but far from destitute.”
Benardo is among those who believe that everyone has a right to become the parents of “surrogate children.” This phrase is harsh, jarring, but no more so than the phrase “surrogate carrier” or “surrogate breeder” which is how Benardo refers to what laws have historically defined as “mother,” namely the woman who is pregnant for nine months and who gives birth.
