Grandma, 48, Pregnant--With Daughter’s Triplets

A 48-year-old grandmother is pregnant with her daughter’s test-tube triplets in South Africa’s first known case of surrogate motherhood, and a law professor said today that the mother may have to adopt the babies to make them legally hers.

“South African law doesn’t have a definition of a mother. We all thought we knew who a mother was,” said University of the Witwatersrand Prof. Louise Tager.

Pat Anthony of the northern Transvaal town of Tzaneen is carrying three fetuses from an in vitro fertilization of her daughter’s ova by her son-in-law’s sperm. The babies are due in October.

The daughter, 25-year-old Karen Ferreira-Jorge, had a hysterectomy after complications during the birth of her only son three years ago. She and her husband, Alcino, 33, wanted more children.

Four of Karen Ferreira-Jorge’s eggs, fertilized in a laboratory, were implanted in her mother’s uterus, and three developed.

The family has sold its story to London’s Sunday Mail newspaper and has refused to speak to other reporters.

South African law makes no provision for surrogate motherhood.

Bill in Parliament

A bill pending in Parliament to deal with new conception techniques addresses only the issue of babies born to their natural mothers after artificial insemination, Tager said. The bill would make such children legitimate.

Law Prof. Sybrand Strauss of the University of South Africa said he hoped the pending bill would be amended to include surrogate motherhood, in light of the Tzaneen case. He predicted Parliament would follow British law, which outlaws surrogate motherhood for profit.

The case has created religious as well as legal dilemmas.

The Afrikaans-language newspaper Beeld today quoted the local Roman Catholic priest in Tzaneen as saying he wasn’t sure he would be able to baptize the babies.

“The church rejects such a pregnancy and I must obey church laws,” the priest said.