ing environment. However, despite these many success stories, there are still groups that advocate the prohibition of surrogacy. One such group is the National Committee for Adoption. The NCA has been a consistent and outspoken critic of surrogacy and wants it to be outlawed. They argue that the availability of surrogacy would cut back on the adoption of existing babies. Perhaps if infertile couples were unable to employ a surrogate to have a child for them, they would go about getting a child in some other way, one that would be much more beneficial to society. They might decide to adopt a child already in existence, or a child who will be born in any event and who is in need of a home and family. Fulfilling their parental urges in that way, they would perform an important service to the child and to society. Although this is a valid argument, for some couples adoption seems unavailable. Many couples today are waiting longer before attempting to conceive and thus are older when they discover that they have a problem. Especially if they take time to undergo fertility treatments before turning to adoption, they may find that they are too old to be acceptable to conventional adoption agencies, which prefer couples under the age of thirty-five. Moreover, adoption is not as easy today as it has been in the past, and there is a definite shortage of healthy newborns available for adoption in this country. Infertile couples would argue that the chance to have a “normal” child, and a child as biologically connected to them as possible, is not afforded by special needs adoption or even the adoption of healthy newborns, and that although it benefits society more for them to adopt an existing child than to conceive a new one, the same is true for fertile couples, who nonetheless are permitted to reproduce without any restriction by the state. Surrogate motherhood is growing in popularity because it meets the urgently felt needs of tho...
