A surrogate or surrogate mother is a woman who agrees to carry and give birth to a child for another woman or couple. In traditional surrogacy, the surrogate is the genetic mother. In this case, she is artificially inseminated with the father’s sperm and carries the pregnancy to term. Traditional surrogacy entails a variety of legal issues, including the birth mother's formal abandonment of parental rights, among others. The legal issues are typically addressed in the pre-arrangements and vary from state to state. In gestational surrogacy, the surrogate serves as a gestational carrier and is not the genetic mother. In this case, the surrogate is implanted with an embryo created using in vitro fertilization.