Another Sorry Story for Solomon

Let’s take our reading today from I Kings 3:16-28:

“Then came there two women, that were harlots, unto the King, and stood before him.

“And the one woman said, O my Lord, I and this woman dwell in one house; and I was delivered of a child with her in the house.

“And it came to pass the third day after that I was delivered, that this woman was delivered also.

“And this woman’s child died in the night; because she overlaid it.

“And she arose at midnight, and took my son from beside me, and laid it in her bosom, and laid her dead child in my bosom.

“And when I rose in the morning to give my child suck, behold, it was dead: but when I had considered it in the morning, behold, it was not my son, which I did bear.

“And the other woman said, Nay; but the living is my son, and the dead is thy son.

“Thus they spake before the King.”

All right. Let’s stop it there because we all know the rest. King Solomon’s dilemma is becoming one of the grand metaphors of our age and has been much compared recently to the custody struggle between Anna Johnson and Mark and Crispina Calvert. Who will get the child that all three produced? The woman who bore him or the couple who supplied all his constituent parts, genetically speaking? Hearings begin on Thursday.

Usually, these comparisons serve only as a cheap way for us journalists to get into the story. But let me argue that the Solomon story is a better fit than you might expect.

I recounted the beginning of Solomon’s quandary because it reveals the down-and-dirty nature of the case. Nothing high-minded there. One of these women was trying to pull a fast one.

And so with Baby Boy Johnson. Underneath all the tricky notions that surround the custody dispute, this is a case that has looked like a shakedown from the very beginning.

Who is the shake-downer and who the shake-downees? Consider the origins of the struggle. In July, a pregnant Johnson writes a letter to the Calverts. In the letter she demands early payment of the remainder of her $10,000 fee for surrogacy. This is only the last of several such demands.

Johnson concludes her letter: “This situation can go two ways. One, you can pay me the entire sum early, or two, you can forget about helping me out, calling it a breach of contract, and not get the baby.”

Give credit to Johnson for not playing it cute with her blackmail. The Calverts try to reply, offering to negotiate, but never get an answer. Several days later, they learn of Johnson’s lawsuit from a newscast.

This lawsuit is a piece of work itself. Johnson does not ask for custody only. She also wants child support and damages from the Calverts.

Meanwhile, she is available to Oprah, Phil and Geraldo. She accuses the Calverts of making late payments and neglecting her welfare. She wonders out loud whether people who neglect her welfare could possibly make good parents.

Never mind that the Calverts say their payments were actually made early and produce canceled checks in that regard. Never mind that they cite numerous examples of care extended toward Johnson, care that went beyond their contractual obligations.

Never mind, because Johnson has moved on to other issues. Her attorney claims that she cannot be forced to give up her baby because she is part Indian and exempt from white man’s contracts. A writ-serving by the Calverts’ attorney is portrayed by Johnson as a kidnap attempt.

Is Johnson really an Indian? Who knows. Can you kidnap a baby that has not been born? Don’t ask.

No one except Anna Johnson herself can say why she has waged this unseemly struggle. Perhaps she truly loves the baby. Or perhaps, as her housemate said in an interview, she is driven by the dual lures of money and “being famous.” We will never know.

But lately, something seems to have shifted inside Johnson. Last Friday, the court proposed a mild version of Solomon’s solution when it deliberated over temporary custody. If the two sides could not agree, the court said, it would send the kid to a foster home.

And it was Johnson who relinquished her claim, saying she could not bear the thought of her baby in the hands of strangers. On Saturday, Baby Boy Johnson went to the Calverts’ for a week.

That does not make Anna Johnson the true mother. But it was a true sacrifice. And it does provide some hope that the ending of this story, like Solomon’s, will have more nobility than its beginning.