Women as breeding stock; babies as commodities

I saw this in LBN and thought it should be reposted down here. Women being used as breeding stock for babies to be sold as commodities to the highest bidders:

http://www.washingtonpost.com/national/prominent-calif-lawyer-to-be-sentenced-in-baby-selling-scam-spanning-2-continents/2012/02/24/gIQA7DUIXR_story.html

Prominent Calif. lawyer sentenced in baby selling scam spanning 2 continents

By Associated Press, Updated: Friday, February 24, 3:21 PM

SAN DIEGO — A federal judge sentenced an internationally renowned surrogacy lawyer Friday to five months in prison and nine months of home confinement for her role in a baby-selling scheme that prosecutors say spanned two continents and netted millions of dollars.

With her guilty plea, Theresa Erickson acknowledged that she and two other women used numerous surrogate mothers to create an inventory of unborn babies that they would sell for more than $100,000 each, federal prosecutors said.


U.S. surrogates were sent to be impregnated in the Ukraine with embryos from anonymous donors. When the women were in their second trimester, Erickson and her conspirators offered the babies to prospective parents, telling them the developing fetuses were the results of legal surrogacy arrangements in which the original parents backed out.

Erickson used her fame as a leading reproductive law specialist to win the trust of both the surrogates and intended parents, prosecutors said.

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