Surrogate Mother Regains Right to See Baby M

The New Jersey Supreme Court on Friday reinstated surrogate mother Mary Beth Whitehead’s right to visit the daughter she bore under a $10,000 contract.

The 6-1 ruling was issued 10 days after a lower court judge took away the 30-year-old homemaker’s parental rights and granted custody of the year-old girl to William Stern, the biological father.

The Supreme Court refused to stay Superior Court Judge Harvey R. Sorkow’s March 31 decision upholding the surrogate contract but said Whitehead could visit her baby pending a decision on her appeal, court spokeswoman Beatrice Kellum said.

“She will be home, I feel it in my heart,” Whitehead said of the girl she calls Sara and who is known in the media as Baby M. “I just want to see her.”

“I had all the confidence,” she added when asked whether she had doubted that she would be allowed to see her daughter again.

Whitehead said also that she was allowed to continue calling the contested child Sara. “I think that says a lot from the Supreme Court.”

Whitehead will be able to see the child once a week for two hours, two hours less than she had been allowed before the lower court decision. The visits will start next week, with attorneys meeting Monday to decide the schedule.

In court papers, Whitehead’s attorney had argued for a resumption of visitation on the grounds that he would win his appeal and that continuing the separation of mother and child would cause “irreparable harm” to the girl.

“I will see her at any time and at any place that I am allowed,” Whitehead said in court papers. “I respectfully request that the court not break or interrupt the bonds between myself and my daughter any more than have already been interrupted.”

An attorney for Stern and his wife, Elizabeth, who has adopted the baby, maintained that a resumption of visits would be detrimental to the “peace and security” of the girl, whom they call Melissa Elizabeth.

“Obviously, we’re disappointed,” said Francis Donahue, an attorney for the Tenafly couple. “We don’t feel it bears any reflection on the ultimate outcome of the appeal, but apparently the Supreme Court didn’t think it would be harmful for the child.”

The Supreme Court agreed earlier this week to hear an expedited appeal of Sorkow’s ruling and scheduled arguments for Sept. 14.

The dispute began when Whitehead decided not to honor the surrogate contract, under which she was artificially inseminated with Stern’s sperm.

After refusing to surrender the baby, Whitehead fled with the infant to Florida, where she lived for 87 days before authorities found her and the baby was put in the temporary custody of the Sterns.