Baby M’s Mother Granted Expanded Visiting Rights

A judge on Wednesday granted surrogate mother Mary Beth Whitehead-Gould unsupervised, weekly visits with the daughter she bore under a $10,000 contract.

Both sides said they would not appeal the ruling, and Superior Court Judge Birger M. Sween urged an end to the court fight over Baby M, which sparked a world debate on parental rights and reproductive technology.

Sween held that 2-year-old Melissa Stern, known as Baby M in court papers, would not suffer emotionally from seeing her natural mother for one six-hour visit each week. He said the schedule will be expanded over the next year to allow for overnight stays, some holidays and two weeks in the summer of 1989.

“She and her mother have the right to develop their own special relationship,” Sween said in the decision, filed in Hackensack and made public here by attorneys.

No-Visiting Plea

The girl’s father, William Stern, and his wife, Elizabeth, have custody of Melissa and had asked the court to bar such visits for at least six years. Whitehead-Gould had been seeing the child for two hours once a week, with supervision.

Sween also moved to protect Melissa’s privacy. He barred both sides from discussing her publicly, such as in the promotion of books or movies, without court approval. His ruling, however, allows the adults to talk about their own experiences and thus clears the way for Whitehead-Gould to publish the book she has planned.

The judge rejected the Sterns’ contention at a hearing last week that Whitehead-Gould would emotionally harm the child and exploit her in the media.

Judge’s Assessment

“Melissa is a resilient child who is no less capable than thousands of children of broken marriages who successfully adjust to complex family relationships when their parents remarry,” Sween said.

The tug-of-war began after Whitehead-Gould, then married to Richard Whitehead, agreed to be inseminated with Stern’s sperm. She has since divorced Whitehead and married Dean Gould, an accountant.

She gave birth to Melissa on March 31, 1986, but decided to refuse the Sterns’ $10,000 fee and fled with the baby. The ensuing legal battle led to a landmark New Jersey Supreme Court ruling that outlawed surrogacy-for-pay and restored Whitehead-Gould’s parental rights. It upheld the Sterns’ custody of the child but ordered the lower-court hearing on visiting rights.