The surrogate mother as a high-risk obstetric patient.

A number of medical and public policies are recommended in the revised statement on surrogate motherhood by the Committee on Ethics of the American College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists (ACOG), 1 which expands and replaces the original committee opinion of 1983. Some of the implications with respect to the physician-patient relationship have been laid out in the updated statement, whereas others may only become evident as the practitioner increasingly encounters this population of obstetric patients and the affected families. This commentary examines how the implementation of the revised ethical guidelines may affect and refine future practice.