 Commercial surrogacy is a practice in which a woman is paid to become pregnant as a result of either artificial insemination or the implantation of an already fertilized egg, and to surrender her parental rights to the intended parent(s). In the United States, most surrogacy arrangements are purely domestic affairs (with both the intended parents and the surrogate being citizens of the United States), but a significant number are international, in which the surrogate mother is often a citizen of a much poorer country.