All Questions, No Answers

When it comes to surrogate parenting, medical technology is far ahead of legislators and ethicists alike. We have learned how to outwit nature before we have learned whether we should. This technology offers a biological way for childless couples to become parents. But, as a society, are we comfortable using it?

The Baby M case, which was decided in New Jersey last week, puts many of the issues in focus, and the disagreements between well-intentioned people over the outcome of the case clearly demonstrate that there is no consensus on these questions. Even people who believe that the judge did the right thing seem vaguely uneasy about it.

The judge, Harvey R. Sorkow, took the occasion of deciding the case to urge the legislature to help him and future judges in these matters by determining what public policy should be. The problem is that no one knows the answer.

In the Baby M case, William and Elizabeth Stern wanted a child but couldn’t have one because of Mrs. Stern’s health. Instead, they agreed to pay $10,000 to Mary Beth Whitehead to be artificially inseminated with Mr. Stern’s sperm, to carry and bear the baby and then to turn it over to the Sterns. But when Whitehead saw the baby, she said, she became emotionally attached to her and sought to break the contract.

Judge Sorkow ruled that the contract is valid and enforceable, and that Baby M belongs to the Sterns.

Are we altogether sure that this arrangement should be condoned? Doesn’t this transaction smack of baby-selling, which is illegal in every state? Isn’t a woman’s renting her womb like selling an organ, which is also barred? Shouldn’t we pay more attention to the emotional trauma that the biological mother must feel on giving up her baby? How will society cope with babies who suffer the opposite fate of Baby M--that is, who wind up unwanted by either set of parents? And, ultimately and most importantly, what of the babies themselves? What scars, what burdens will be added to them as a result of their unusual parentage?

As the number of abortions has risen, the number of unwanted babies has dropped, making adop-tion very difficult for childless couples. Surrogate pregnancy is a way for them to be parents after all. About 500 children have already been born this way, and there will be more. The Baby M case is only the first of many disputes that are bound to arise.

The technology is also bound to continue developing, and the trend is unmistakable: The age at which a fetus can survive outside a woman’s womb is going down, and the length of time that afertilized egg can be nurtured in the laboratory before being implanted in a womb keeps going upSome day in the not-too-distant future we won’t need wombs at all, and women won’t have to become pregnant and bear children if they choose not to and can afford it. Is this desirable?

These excruciating questions will be answered willy-nilly as things develop unless our society focuses on them in an organized way. Government intervention in decisions that are essentially personal is always distasteful. But there is no better forum than the legislative process for asking questions, even if its ability to answer them is imperfect. Judge Sorkow was right to turn to legislatures for help.