Baby Boy Needs a Name and Parents, Not Legal Counsel

Let us pause to celebrate the birth of a child. Even in the face of the foolishness of adults, it’s always a miracle.

Let’s also give thanks he’s not old enough to read the newspapers or watch television news. If he could, he’d no doubt high-tail it outta here. This may be the first kid in history whose first words aren’t goo-goo or da-da, but “I wanna see my lawyer!”

We’re talking, of course, about Baby Boy Johnson, a great name for a rookie slugger just up from Triple A but not for a newborn infant. He deserves a real name, a real home and real parents--not the legal sideshow that he’s been born into.

That decision will come and unless the law has gone coconuts, the baby will be turned over to Cris and Mark Calvert, his genetic parents.

Baby Boy was born Wednesday, delivered into the world by Anna Johnson, who signed on as a surrogate mother for the Calverts for $10,000 because Cris Calvert is biologically unable to carry a fetus. All sides agree that, barring the unforeseen, the baby is the genetic product of Mark and Cris.

But Johnson, a co-worker of Cris Calvert’s, says she “bonded” with the child while pregnant and wants custody. Indeed, she’s been breast-feeding Baby Boy.

At Thursday’s dueling press conferences, both sides laid out their claims to the child. Sometime today, a judge is expected to award temporary custody, pending a trial for permanent custody.

Anna Johnson’s attorneys say the original surrogacy contract is invalid, because such contracts by their very nature are illegal. As the birth mother, Richard C. Gilbert said, Anna Johnson is legally entitled to sole custody. But, Gilbert said, Johnson would agree to “shared parenting” of Baby Boy for life. To get the ball rolling, if the Calverts want to send over five prospective names, Johnson would be happy to select one, he said.

The earlier claims that Johnson made about the Calverts’ unfitness to be the baby’s parents are being washed away in the spirit of compromise. “All is forgiven,” Gilbert said.

Gilbert called it conciliation; it sounded like backtracking from a case that just isn’t going to stand up.

But while the Calverts may have logic on their side, you have to wonder about their wisdom. Mark Calvert acknowledged Thursday that he and his wife didn’t know Johnson had previously had two miscarriages and two stillborn children.

Calvert also said he’d rather put Baby Boy in a foster home than let Anna Johnson have custody. Keep in mind that this is the woman to whom they entrusted the birth of their child. Let’s hope the Calverts make better judgments about their son’s future than they did about the circumstances of his birth.

Perhaps with time, this case will work itself out.

Had these three taken more time to check each other out--instead of making a decision as if they were buying a new washer and dryer--none of this would have happened. The history of surrogacy in recent years is full of cases in which the surrogate mother developed a friendship with the parents.

It’d be nice to envision a future when the Calverts and their son would be friends with Johnson, mindful of her special role in their life. But no court can order them to become friends. They’ll have to do that in private, away from the glare of publicity.

Perhaps you think I’m callous to Anna Johnson’s claim of bonding with Baby Boy. I’m not. It’s just that hers is a hard case to prove. None of us can get inside her mind. We can, however, reasonably assume that she didn’t enter into this arrangement because she wanted another child or to “bond” with the Calverts’ child. Whatever bonding that happened did so as an unforeseen byproduct of the pregnancy. On that basis, should she be given custody of someone else’s child?

It doesn’t compute.

We have only her word that she has, in fact, bonded with this baby at all. All we know for sure is that she agreed to deliver the child in exchange for money.

Ralph Fagen, co-director of the Center for Surrogate Parenting in Beverly Hills, says it’s wrong to assume that surrogate mothers automatically bond with the unborn child.

Rather, Fagen says, studies indicate that “the mind-set of the surrogate when she becomes pregnant, from the very beginning, is that the child is not hers, which sets up a different psychological condition to the pregnancy. . . .” And in most cases, Fagen said, the surrogate “is out of the picture” after the birth.

In the midst of all the legalisms and posturing on both sides, Johnson’s attorney did say something Thursday with which I’m in total agreement. Referring to the upcoming custody case, Gilbert said: “I hope the Lord is with the judge on this case.”

Amen, brother.

And to Baby Boy, I’d add a personal wish.

Good luck, kid. You’re gonna need it.