New film Baby Mama, released the end of April, tells the story of a successful, single businesswoman who decides, at 37, to have a child. Unable to get pregnant herself, she allows a South Philly working girl to become her surrogate.

The film has already pulled in over $32 million at the Box Office, perhaps because it reflects the trend – seen everywhere from Hollywood to Newsweek – that motherhood is hip.

It seems that every other Hollywood star, from Nicole Kidman to Jessica Alba to Baby Mama’s Amy Poehler herself, is sporting a Versace-draped baby bump. Other women who put off having children to establish a career are suddenly realizing there is something missing and are trying to rectify it. Newsweek ‘s April 7^th cover story looks at couples who turn to surrogate mothers to bear their biological children, and “gestational carrier” mothers who use surrogacy to supplement family incomes.

Technology makes these late pregnancies easier: Millions of children have been born using in vitro fertilization, and more women in their 30s, 40s, and even 50s are getting pregnant using donor eggs from younger women.

All of this allows women to have children on demand, when and how they want them. Is this a renewed realization of “pro-life” vibes in our society, or simply another way of being “pro-choice”: Women can have children if it is what they want, when they want them?

While Hollywood is producing films like Baby Mama and last December’s drama Juno, the L.A. Times and other newspapers are reporting stories like these:

California’s ‘safe surrender’ program, allowing parents to leave unwanted newborns at fire stations and hospitals without penalty, has become an orphan, with little money and no state agency responsible for publicizing or overseeing it.

Homeless man finds newborn girl in trash bin, alive.

A 37-year-old taxi driver in Maryland was charged earlier this month with murdering a newborn. Days before, she’d been rushed to a hospital, bleeding — and denied being pregnant even though doctors found a placenta in her womb.

So, with motherhood becoming hip while stories of infanticide pop up in the papers, what should an onlooker think? Are more people seeing the value of new life? Or is it just about convenient motherhood?