《DEVELOPING MARKETS IN BABY-MAKING》.pdfVIP

DEVELOPING MARKETS IN BABY-MAKING: IN THE MATTER OF BABY M Carol Sanger∗ Introduction In the spring of 1985, the fortunes of two ordinary New Jersey cou- ples, Richard and Mary Beth Whitehead and William and Elizabeth Stern, became profoundly and quite publicly entangled. The Whiteheads, a work- ing-class couple from Brick Township, had been married for twelve years. They had met in Mary Beth’s brother’s luncheonette, where Richard (Rick) was a regular patron and Mary Beth a teenage waitress. Their early life together had been somewhat rough and tumble—frequent moves, a mari- tal separation, a spell on welfare—but by the early 1980s, their circum- stances had improved. Rick had a steady job as a garbage truck driver; the couple now owned a house, if heavily mortgaged. The Whiteheads also had two much-loved children, a son Ryan born in 1974 and a daughter Tuesday born a year later, and in this regard they were content. Shortly after Tuesday’s birth, they had decided that their family was perfect and complete; to keep it that way, and with eighteen-year-old Mary Beth’s approval, Rick had a vasectomy. The Sterns, married only a year less than the Whiteheads, had met and married while they were graduate students at the University of Michigan. The couple had decided to postpone their family until Elizabeth (Betsy) had completed her medical training, when they would be more ªnancially 1 secure. In 1985, after Betsy ªnished her residency, the Sterns moved from 2 an apartment in the Bronx to the pleasant bedroom community of Tenaºy. ∗ Barbara Aronstein Black Professor of Law, Columbia Law School. I would like to thank