Emmy-winner and Oscar-nominee Barbara Hershey ("Portrait of a Lady," "Hannah and Her Sisters") plays a free spirit who agrees to bear a child for a childless couple in this early look at the phenomenon of surrogate motherhood. Co-starring Scott Glenn ("The Silence of the Lambs," "The Right Stuff"), this is the first feature by director James Bridges ("Urban Cowboy," "The China Syndrome").

Barbara Hershey stars as Tish Gray, a free-spirited woman who agrees to act as a surrogate mother for Suzanne and Jay Wilcox (Collin Wilcox-Horne and Sam Groom), an affluent Beverly Hills couple that is unable to conceive a child on its own. Unfortunately, the arrangement is not as simple as it seems; for starters, Tish must allow herself to be impregnated by Jay, causing considerable strain on Tish's own relationship with her boyfriend (Scott Glenn) as well as on Jay's insecure wife. During Tish's pregnancy, powerful emotions emerge on both sides, devastating the possibility of a normal relationship between the two estranged couples. When Tish is faced with the reality of giving up "her" baby, she is forced to realize the very real connection she has made with her child and the father. In the 1970s, surrogate parenting was still considered to be an extremely radical topic; however, THE BABY MAKER offers a thoroughly modern treatment of a timeless dilemma.