Consultant Says Surrogate Is Child’s Mother : Litigation: Birth mothers are the biological mothers, the judge is told as the Johnson-Calvert custody hearing gets under way.

The most important hearing in the landmark custody battle over a baby born to surrogate mother Anna L. Johnson opened Tuesday, featuring testimony that any woman who gives birth to a child has the right to call herself the parent even if the child is not genetically related to her.

Dr. Michelle Harrison, a psychiatrist at the University of Pittsburgh and a consultant to the National Coalition Against Surrogacy, said that birth mothers are the biological mothers of the children they bear, even if another couple provided the egg and sperm that made the baby, as Mark and Crispina Calvert, an infertile couple, did in Johnson’s case.

“She is the mother of the baby because she gestated and gave birth to that child,” said Harrison, who has studied the psychological impact of new reproductive technology on mothers and their children.

“What makes her a mother is her emotional and physical work in nurturing the fetus and the way in which her body builds the baby. It brings oxygen. It takes away waste. It protects the baby from bacteria and external assault.”

But lawyers for the baby and the Calverts attacked the testimony of Johnson’s witnesses, claiming that they were illogical and unqualified to act as experts on the issues.

Harrison, who has counseled Johnson by telephone, was called as a witness by

Johnson’s lawyers in what is expected to be a three-day hearing. Orange County Superior Court Judge Richard N. Parslow Jr. is confronted with an unprecedented decision: does the baby have two parents--the Calverts--or three, including Johnson? A three-parent ruling could redefine prevailing legal definitions of parenthood.

Johnson, 29, who agreed to bear the Calverts’ child for $10,000, hopes to establish that she should be considered the legal mother of the 3-week-old baby boy because she carried and delivered him. The Calverts, who have temporary custody of the child, believe that they are the baby’s only true parents because they provided the genetic material from which he sprang.

Blood and DNA tests have proved that the Calverts are the genetic parents of the baby.

Johnson’s second witness, San Diego clinical psychologist David B. Chamberlain, agreed with Harrison that a birth mother plays a greater role in giving life to a child than does a genetic mother.

Chamberlain, author of a book called “Babies Remember Birth,” said an infant’s bond to its birth mother also justifies assigning her parental rights. He cited studies of infant-mother bonding indicating that newborns who have never seen their birth mothers before can recognize their pictures and identify them by odor and touch in a darkened room.

At times, Tuesday’s hearing turned into an uneasy exploration into the frontiers of morality, law, philosophy and biology. One such moment came as Harold LaFlamme, the baby’s court-appointed lawyer, questioned Harrison about the logic she used to conclude that Johnson is the child’s mother.

Harrison, who had just testified that Crispina Calvert’s genetic contribution to the baby is less important than Johnson’s gestational role, told LaFlamme that she considers Mark Calvert the child’s father. Why, LaFlamme demanded, is it acceptable to define a father by his genetic contribution but not a mother?

“Technology has created a new dilemma for us,” Harrison said. “The old definition of father still works, but we’re confronted with having to look again at our definition of mother.”

Smiling, she added: “I’m not comfortable with any of this.”

Harrison stuck by her belief that a birth mother contributes more to the making of a child than do the sperm and egg donors.

“Anna is the mother and the Calverts are the other half, like the father,” she said.

She added later that the child essentially has three parents and that she believes that Johnson is the baby’s true mother. She said Johnson has expressed deep feelings of attachment to the baby.

The Calverts’ lawyer, Christian R. Van Deusen, asked whether Harrison had questioned Johnson to determine whether she was telling the truth about her feelings of bonding to the child. Harrison said she wanted to be “supportive” and not “interrogate” Johnson, so she had not. Van Deusen asked whether Harrison’s opinion was affected by a July 23 letter that Johnson wrote to the Calverts, threatening to keep the child unless she was immediately paid the remainder of her $10,000 fee. Harrison said that did not matter.

“Pregnant women faced with the loss of their baby say and do a lot of things to keep them,” Harrison said.

Van Deusen also tried to question the reliability of Johnson’s claims by bringing up her guilty plea to two counts of welfare fraud, but Parslow barred that.

“I don’t want to try that case in here, Mr. Van Deusen,” the judge said.

The American Civil Liberties Union entered the case Tuesday, filing a friend-of-the-court brief that argued all three adults have parental rights over the baby.