Surrogate Mother Claims Couple Deceived Her

A young Mexican woman testified Thursday that a San Diego County couple misled her into serving as a surrogate mother by promising that her embryo would be transplanted into the other woman’s womb after just three weeks.

Alejandra Arellano Munoz, 21, testified tearfully in Spanish that Mario and Natty Haro of Chula Vista reneged on the deal and then duped her into signing a two-sentence statement that they now claim is part of a binding surrogate-mother contract.

She said that, when she informed them late in her pregnancy that she intended to keep the child, they ignored her, believing that because they had brought her illegally into the United States she would be unable to fight for custody.

When she gave birth to Lydia Michelle on June 25, 1986, Munoz said, Mrs. Haro signed her own name to the birth certificate--a crucial act that Munoz said made it difficult for her to find a lawyer willing to take her case.

“I told Mario, ‘I’m going to do everything I can to take that daughter away from you and see her,’ ” Munoz testified through an interpreter in Superior Court in San Diego. “Mario said ‘You’ll sink.’ Then I said, ‘We’ll both sink, because I want to see my daughter.’ ”

Munoz’s testimony contrasted sharply with that of the Haros, who testified Wednesday and Thursday morning that they had never mentioned embryo transplants, and that Munoz had willingly signed the contract agreeing to accept $1,500 for her services.

The Haros charged that they were being blackmailed by Munoz. They said Munoz and Mrs. Haro’s half-sister, who has taken Munoz’s side, demanded increasing amounts of money to compensate Munoz for what the Haros said began as a simple favor.

The case, which may lead to the first California state court rulings on the validity of surrogate contracts, began in 1985 when a mutual aunt of Munoz and Mrs. Haro suggested Munoz serve as a surrogate mother for the Haros, who were unable to have children. Judge William Pate is presiding at the trial.

Mario Haro, a 33-year-old high school science teacher, and Natty Haro, a 37-year-old bank employee, arranged to have Munoz and her young daughter brought across the border. She moved into their home and artificially inseminated herself with Mario Haro’s sperm.

Munoz’s lawyer, Harvey Berman, has said he filed suit in September to regain custody of the child in an attempt to right the injustice he said was done to Munoz. He contends that the case illustrates the dangers of surrogate agreements unsupervised by the judicial and social-service systems.

The Haros’ lawyer, Merle Schneidewind, filed a counter-claim in October contending that Munoz had breached a binding oral contract by trying to get back her daughter. He argues that people should be allowed to work out any kind of informal surrogate agreements they want.

On Thursday, Munoz, who is unmarried and worked as a cleaning woman in a bank in her hometown near Mazatlan, said she agreed to the arrangement because relatives told her that Mrs. Haro was a cousin and that the procedure would take only three weeks.

“Since my grandmother told me we were family and it would be fine,” she said repeatedly, in response to the Haros’ lawyer’s questioning. She said of Mrs. Haro, “She told me she was going to help me with something and I trusted her because she was my blood.”

But about six weeks into her pregnancy, Munoz said, she felt she had been “deceived” and threatened to abort the fetus. But she said her aunt advised her it would be “a sin” to have an abortion, so she resolved to complete the pregnancy.

During that argument, Munoz said, the Haros asked her to sign a piece of paper. She said she signed without knowing what it was, “because I was crying and nervous, I didn’t know what to do. . . . Because she hadn’t read it, she just said: ‘Sign it.’ ”

“But as soon as they did the paper, they took it to the bedroom and they didn’t show it to anyone and they put it away,” Munoz recalled. Asked why the relatives who had taken her side did not object, Munoz said they had been silenced by Mrs. Haro.

The paper, signed by Munoz and Natty Haro, contains a two-sentence statement handwritten in Spanish stating that Natty Haro would give Munoz 840,000 pesos ($1,500 at the time) after the birth of the child and Munoz would relinquish all rights to the baby.

Schneidewind contends that the agreement is a “written modification” to an already existing oral contract between Munoz and the Haros. But Munoz said Wednesday: “They were the ones that did the paper. I never asked for a penny.”

Munoz testified that, seven to eight months into her pregnancy, she informed the Haros that she intended to keep the child. But, upon leaving the hospital after giving birth by Caesarean section, she said, she was too weak to fight to keep control of the infant.

“I couldn’t fight because I barely could walk,” she said, sobbing and recalling how the Haros dropped her off at an aunt’s house shortly after the birth and drove off with the baby.

But when she informed another cousin that she intended to get the baby back, Munoz said, she discovered it would be difficult because when she signed the birth certificate, Natty Haro had guided her hand in spelling out Mrs. Haro’s name.

“When she asked me, ‘Do you have papers from the hospital?’ I said no,” Munoz said. “She said, ‘Who signed all the papers?’ I said Natty. She said, ‘Alejandra, you cannot do anything for your daughter because you don’t have that birth certificate.’ ”