Love Golarion Style.
The Mating Game.
In one particular setting we had (juuuuust prior to actually learning anything about Golarion, so it was interesting timing), we created a setting with an order of mostly-half-elven paladins.
The short history:
1) There was a powerful diabolic invasion of a local material plane. There they reigned supreme, as they began a campaign of methodical expansion. It was effectively unstoppable due to its careful planning.
2) A group of powerful good native outsiders (aasimars, couatls, and a few others) utilized high magic to create a divine "ward" against the devils, preventing them from utilizing their teleportation and other powerful magical abilities. This slowed the expansion somewhat, but was unable to stop it, despite the high cost in lives (the "spirit" of the outsiders continually battled the ever-increasing number of devils).
3) The local elves and a crusading (in-development) pseudo-kingdom marched forth to fight against the devils. It goes poorly for those who oppose the devils, especially since the diabolic powers begin recruiting small but skilled military tribes of hobgoblins with promises of power (once the crusade is finished and the devils can annihilate the ward against them).
4) Unable to defeat them, powerful elven druids, copying the ancient outsider techniques, used Elven High Magic that cost thousands of lives reinforces and enhances the barrier, actively weakening all the devils, outright killing many; the devils are unable to claim any land that they do not already have, and are prevented from returning to their home plane - the dead devils are simply trapped on the prime, where there bodies rot like mortal corpses.
5) The human crusaders take the opportunity afforded and drive out the hobgoblins and slay the devils, also costing untold numbers of lives.
6) The crusade effectively "won" (though the devils continue to fight), the crusaders establish an outpost on the border of the Damned Lands. This flourishes into a powerful and mighty citadel. This becomes highly important later when the hobgoblins come in ever-greater numbers.
7) The crusaders and elves each fight hobgoblins in their own way, slowly loosing numbers - the Elves don't breed fast enough, and the Crusaders slowly find less and less interest in sending sons and daughters off to an eternal war to eventually die. Plus desertions from despair or corruption. And, you know, death.
8) The elves, noticing the pattern, approach the humans, and together they devise a breeding program. Eventually, this means that the elves all join the crusaders. Though the elves are eventually bred out, they knew this would happen - it was a price the druidic people were willing to pay for the balance. Some elves from other parts of the world occasionally follow their trance-visions there, called by an unknown force. Occasionally especially zealous human believers volunteer for the crusades of their own accord. Mostly, the Crusaders persist through careful breeding programs (kept in intricate detail by elven-style tattooing across their body to ensure they breed with as many compatible people as possible and eliminate in-breeding) and rather - um, let's say "passionate", yes, that's the word - "recruitment drives" in which they gain new recruits by incredibly blunt and thorough honesty yet still generate "interest". Due to the order being almost exclusively from the human lands (the elves all have ancient druidic spirits they worship instead), the vast majority of recruits in this manner are human.
9) The order continues to battle against the faster-spawning hobgoblins; though the hobgoblins breed more quickly, the Crusaders are making slow but inevitable progress... even as they devil lands expand slowly over the centuries due to environmental diffusion of infernal blood and the purposeful life and death and breeding of hobgoblin tieflings to increase the amount of diabolic environmental diffusion (a trick developed by tortured and corrupted elves). The half-elves are occasionally aasimars (from exposure to the sacred energy), sorcerers (from exposure to the ancient High Magic), and tieflings (from exposure to the diabolic ambiance). The first two are highly revered, the third is highly suspicious... until they prove themselves worthy as a paladin, at which point they are welcomed as brothers (and usually they work hard to ensure that their inevitable death at the end of hobgoblin spears happens well within the borders of the Damned Lands, to prevent the slow spread of diabolic corruption).
There are lots more details - the Crusaders have a very complex and detailed Code both more demanding and more casual than the way the standard code is usually read, for example, but that's not really relevant.
The important part is the half-elves, and how they were developed: a breeding program created by true neutral and lawful good individuals of both races with care taken by adopting elements from both cultures to eliminate inbreeding and permit (and somewhat require as a Sacred Duty to the World) people to breed with as many individuals as possible to make as many new recruits to fight the seemingly eternal evil as possible.
Half-elves: your last defense against the horrors of hell. (Or at least against the horrors of hell-influenced hobgoblins.)
Some elf wizard wanted a half-elf to magic jar so he could cast Paragon Surge.
My half-elf rogue Lucille from the last campaign I played was an interesting one. Supposedly her widowed mother had had a one night stand with a mysterious elf. And much to her (and my, as I had not written this part) surprise, that elf was in fact the elven king. Must have a thing for human maidens.
Given that the elven royalty were the villains of the campaign, it was an... interesting family reunion.
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When I first read the thread title, I thought maybe the OP had meant to type "half orc baby". Half-orcs tend to usually be the result of orcs pillaging a human village and claiming the women, but I'm never even heard of a half-elf that was the result of rape.
Humans and elves have always gotten along perfectly well, so why wouldn't they court each other? Elves may be reluctant to let other races live in their ancestral homelands, but there are plenty of elves traveling, living, and working in human lands, alongside humans. Such elves would inevitably come to see the humans as his or her peers, and vice versa.