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University Daily Kansan, December 3, 1982
Topeka surrogate program draws acclaim, repulsion
By JULIE HEABERLIN Staff Reporter
Some say it speaks of a brave new world.
Others, repulsed, believe it is a practice that smells of baby selling and selling.
Whatever the verdict, surrogate mother programs are rapidly out-growing controversy and fulfilling dreams of married couples across the Bath Bridgman, the director of the New Hager Institute based in Topeka.
Incorporated this year, the Hagar Institute has placed ads in several local newspapers to recruit healthy, single women as surrogate mothers.
SINCE FEBRUARY, Bridgman said, the program has received 80 calls from women who are interested in being surrogate mothers and 55 calls from couples. So far, one surrogate in the Hagar program is pregnant, and six other couples have completed the interview process and now are choosing women to be surrogate mothers for their babies.
The program is designed for couples in which the wife is infertile and who, therefore, are facing a future without children, Bridgman said. The surrogate, who is paid $7,500 for her services, is artificia insured by the insurer and uses spousal after signing a contract that says she gives up all rights to the child after birth.
The couple pays $16,000 for the baby, which includes the surrogate's living expenses, medical costs, insemination fees and all of the institute's services.
"I don't think there is so much controversy about surrogate mothers as there is a feeling of surprise, of weirderness," Bridgman said. "I think it's needed and it's beautiful. It won't be long before it is no big deal."
BUT NOT EVERYONE agrees
Daniel Harkness, director of consultation and education at the firm, said that the triangle of people involved, including
the baby, could suffer lifelong emotional damage.
"I can't see it producing anything but anguish for all the people involved." Harkness said. "Any couple that would set out to have a child under those conditions are immature, narcistic people unable to distinguish between their personal needs and the realistic needs of children.
"I would expect the surrogate mother to have feelings of guilt, depression and rage, quite likely for the rest of her life. It is impossible to generalize about people, but I think a woman who would enter the process would be in desperate circumstances, and feel she has very few choices in life."
HARKNESS SAID he could not rely on official research because of the newness of the program, but that he had consulted with women in the past who were technically operating as a teacher mothers outside a structured program.
Bridgman said she steered away from those women who applied and who obviously were interested in surrogate motherhood, giving money, andoney, and humanitarian reasons.
"Some of the surrogates know the heartbreak of friends who are unable to have babies," Bridgman said, "and believe everyone should have children.
"It is so difficult to adopt white babies now. Social services are not even taking applications because the waiting list is three to seven years.
"BY THE TIME the woman finds out she is infertile, she has probably been through numerous medical procedures and would not meet the adoption age requirement."
Neo Kean, the Michigan attorney who started the first surrogate program in the United States, said his institute had delivered 21 children to parents, including single men. One couple requested two surrogates, for $10,000 a piece, and now has two ers, at $10,000 a piece, and now has only several days apart in age, be said.
programs in the United States now," Keane said in a recent phone interview."
Keane, who has recently appeared on the Phil Donahue Show to discuss his book "The Surrogate Mother," said that the legal aspect of surrogate motherhood was the "hottest issue in law schools today."
Keane said he would be lobbying the Michigan Legislature this year for a
"It's here to stay, with about 17
bill that would strengthen the legality of the program.
NO LEGISLATION exists to govern either the practice of artificial insemination, or surrogate parenthood, Keane said.
At the request of a Kansas judge, Attorney General Robert Stephan submitted a motion to support the legality of a surrogate motherhood program in Kansas.
However, according to Neal Woerman, a spokesman for Stephan, the opinion was not a ringing endorsement of the idea. If the surrogate decided to keep her child, and reneged on the contract, there is no law that could force her to turn the child over to the parents. Woerman said.
In the opinion, Woerman said, Stephen made it clear that the contract was not a breach of the terms.
Photo Illustration by Tod Megredy
was against the law to use a child for "compensation in a contract."
"I suppose you could substitute the word 'sale'," Weerman said.
IN THE HISTORY of the United States, only one couple has taken a surrogate to court who refused to relinquish her hold on the child she had adopted. Her body was dropped the highly publicized case; so no court precedent was established.
"We are heavily dependent on screening these women." Bridgman said. "It takes a woman who enjoys being pregnant, and although it is only natural to feel attached, it is important that she does not consider it her baby. She is essentially the couple's foster mother."
Another controversial question raised about surrogate motherhood is the possibility of a child born with birth defects.
Bridgman said she warned each couple in initial interviews that they would still be responsible for the child.
"IF THE SURROGATE miscarries, then that is paid for." Bridgman said; "and the parents also take over if the child has a birth defect. It's the same thing if the mother produces quintuplets."
Bridgman said that she talked to both couples and surrogates in extensive interviews before she accepted them for the program, and that it was important the wife had resolved grief over her infertility.
The surrogate interviewing process is more intense, Bridgman said, because the woman must reveal personal about her past and present life.
After the interview, the couple is given a book filled with photographs of the prospective surrogates and their children, along with an medical record, social history and a psychologist's evaluation of each woman.
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