Surrogacy is an evolving industry, closely tied to our legal system and ever-changing societal values. 

A brief timeline of surrogacy, policy, and women's health: 

• 1930s – U.S. pharmaceutical companies start the mass production of estrogen
• 1944 – A Harvard Medical School professor becomes the first person to fertilize human ova outside the uterus
• 1953 – The first freeze of sperm was successfully performed by Researchers
• 1971 – The first commercial sperm bank opened
• 1978 – The first successful IVF procedure occurred in England
• 1980 – The first surrogacy contract was written between Surrogate & Intended Parents
• 1985 – A woman carried the first successful gestational surrogate pregnancy
• 1986 – "Baby M," was born in the U.S., an infamous surrogacy case. The surrogate and biological mother refused to cede custody to the couple with whom she made the surrogacy agreement. The courts initially found the contracts for surrogate motherhood illegal and invalid. However, the court later found it in the best interest of the infant to award custody to the surrogate family
• 1990 – A gestational carrier in California refuses to give up the baby to the intended parents. The couple then sued her for custody, and the court upheld their parental rights. This cases legally defined the true mother as the woman who, according to the surrogacy agreement, intends to create and raise a child
• 1994 – Latin American fertility specialists convened in Chile to discuss assisted reproduction and its ethical and legal status. While the Chinese government banned gestational surrogacy because of the legal complications involved and possible refusal by surrogates to relinquish a baby
• 2009 – A Chinese government enforcement of a gestational-surrogacy ban is lifted