When Ted (Seth MacFarlane) tells his best friend John (Mark Wahlberg) that he and his new bride Tami-Lynn (Jessica Barth) want to have a baby, everyone is thrilled. John decides to help him.

After failing to get Tom Brady to unknowingly donate sperm, John offers to donate himself, but when things don't work out, the two to come up with an alternative—adoption. In order to adopt a child, the state requires that Ted prove that he is a person, and not a possession, in a court of law.

With the help of a recent law-school grad named Samantha L. Jackson (Amanda Seyfried), Ted and John set off to court to get the teddy bear the right to be recognized as a person.