Surrogate Mother

A young Mexican woman testified in court Thursday that a San Diego County couple misled her into serving as a surrogate mother by promising that after she carried the embryo just three weeks it would be transplanted into the other woman's womb. Alejandra Arellano Munoz, 21, testified tearfully that Mario and Natty Haro of Chula Vista then reneged on the deal and duped her into signing a two-sentence statement that they now claim is part of a binding contract for surrogate motherhood.

In the first California ruling of its kind, a Sonoma County judge has rejected a surrogate mother's bid to reclaim her son from a couple who paid her $10,000 to bear the child. Without ruling directly on the legality of surrogacy contracts, Superior Court Judge Lloyd Von der Mehden ruled that the child had been properly adopted and denied Nancy Barrass' request.

A surrogate mother who was awarded joint custody of a child she bore for an infertile couple is violating a judge's order by keeping the toddler longer than she is supposed to, the biological father has charged in court papers. The child's father, Robert Moschetta, is asking Orange County Superior Court Judge Nancy Wieben Stock to find surrogate Elvira Jordan in contempt for allegedly breaching the joint-custody arrangement. A hearing on the matter has been set for Feb. 13.

A surrogate mother testified Thursday she realized while giving birth that she could not give up her baby and that handing her daughter over to the couple who hired her made her feel like "somebody was cutting my arm off." Mary Beth Whitehead said that throughout her pregnancy she understood she would have to give her child to William and Elizabeth Stern. But, she said, her feelings changed in the delivery room. "It overwhelmed me," she testified. "It's just . . . I had no control."

A bachelor who paid $30,000 to have a baby by a surrogate mother pleaded guilty Monday to beating and shaking his 5-week-old son to death to stop him from crying. James Alan Austin, a 26-year-old bank analyst, could get up to 25 years in prison for third-degree murder and endangering the welfare of the infant. Sentencing was set for Sept. 28. Austin wiped away tears as he stood before Common Pleas Judge Jack A. Panella in handcuffs and ankle shackles.

A tearful Mary Beth Whitehead, who lost custody of "Baby M," joined today with other surrogate mothers in a national coalition to ban what they called the "reproductive slavery" of parenting for pay. The coalition, organizers said, will provide moral and legal support to women contemplating a surrogate-parenting contract, or trying to cope with the birth of a child under a surrogate arrangement.

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.

When Beth Scholten mailed her Christmas cards this year, one was particularly poignant. The greeting was to a 1-year-old boy she gave birth to, but whom she will not raise as her son. Scholten, 28, is a surrogate mother. "I think of him as the son of a friend of our family, but one who I'm more interested in . . . ," said Scholten of the child she bore Dec. 20, 1985, for an infertile woman who lives in another state.

Surrogate mother Anna L. Johnson testified Monday that the infertile couple who hired her to bear their baby should not have trusted her to give up the child, but she denied that she misled or lied to them about her intent to keep the infant. Under four hours of intense questioning, Johnson repeatedly fended off accusations from the baby's lawyer that she is a liar, and insisted she had the right to change her mind and keep the child she agreed to bear for Mark and Crispina Calvert for $10,000.

Infertile Japanese couples are hiring Asian-American women to bear their children, paying as much as $45,000, a lawyer who arranges the surrogate mother deals said. "We're dealing with a substantial number of Japanese couples that are coming to this country to have children," said Noel Keane, a lawyer who heads the Infertility Center of New York. Keane, whose center also has offices in Indianapolis and Larkspur, Calif.