A Civil Liberties Analysis of Surrogacy Arrangements

I want to warmly acknowledge the contribunon of the members of the Special Committee on Surrogate Parenting, which I chair for the American Civil Liberties Union. The committee formed the core of analysis on this essay. The members of the ACLU Surrogacy Committee are Leslie Harris, Joan Mahoney, Wendy Williams, and Susan Wolf. Stacey De-Broff is staff liaison to the committee.

There are three distinct roles that are potentially involved in a surrogacy arrangement: The woman who gestates the child and who gives birth (whom I will refer to as the gestational mother); the woman who donates an egg without bearing the baby (the egg donor is usually, but not necessarily, the gestational mother); and the man who provides the sperm (whom I will refer to as the genetic father).

See, e.g., Robertson John , “Procreative Liberty and the Control of Conception, Pregnancy, and Childbirth,” Virginia Law Review, 69 (April 1983): 405; Robertson John , “Surrogate Mothers: Not So Novel after All,” Hastings Center Report (October 1983): 28.

See, e.g., Annas George , “Pregnant Women as Fetal Containers,” Hastings Center Report (Dec. 1986): 13; Annas George , “The Baby Broker Boom,” Hastings Center Report (June 1986): 30.

In re Baby M, 217 N.J. Super. 313 (1987), rev'd in part, 525 A.2d 1128, 1988 W L 6251, Slip Op A-39-87, decided Feb 3, 1988.

Paris Adult Theatre I v. Slaton, 413 U.S. 49, 63 (1973).

Carey v. Population Services International, 431 U.S. 678, 97 S. Ct. 2010, 2016 (1977); Eisenstadt v. Baird, 405 U.S. 438, 453 (1972). See Skinner v. Oklahoma, 316 U.S. 535 (1942).

Griswold v. Connecticut, 85 S. Ct. 1678 (1965).

Loving v. Virginia, 388 U.S. 1 (1967).

Zablocki v. Redhail, 434 U.S. 374 (1978).

Eisenstadt v. Baird, 405 U.S. 438 (1972).

Carey v. Population Services International, 431 U.S. 678, 97 S. Ct. 2010 (1977).

Carey v. Population Services International, 97 S. Ct. at 2016 (1977).

Eisenstadt v. Baird, 92 S. Ct. at 1038 (1972).

410 U.S. 113 (1973).

City of Akron v. Akron Center for Reproductive Health, 462 U.S. 416 (1983).

Thornburgh v. American College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists, 476 U.S. 747 (1986).

85 S. Ct. 1678 (1965).

85 S. Ct. at 1682.

Id.

Santosky v. Kramer, 455 U.S. 745, 753 (1982). See Myer v. Nebraska, 262 U.S. 390, 399 (1923); Pierce v. Society of Sisters, 268 U.S. 510 (1925); Prince v. Massachusetts, 321 U.S. 158 (1944).

Stanley v. Illinois, 405 U.S. 645 (1972).

Stanley v. Illinois, 405 U.S. at 650 (unwed father is a parent whose existing relationship with his children must be considered); Caban v. Mohammed, 441 U.S. 380 (1978) (statute that prevented unwed father, but not unwed mother, from vetoing adoption of natural child was unconstitutional when the father had a relationship with the children comparable with the mother's).

See Annas George , “Pregnant Women,” supra note 3, at 13.

In re Baby M, slip op A-39-87 (1988); Holder Angela , “Surrogate Motherhood: Babies for Fun and Profit,” Law, Medicine & Health Care, 12 (1984): 115.

Robertson John , “Procreative Liberty and the Contract of Conception, Pregnancy and Childbirth,” Virginia Law Review, 69 (1983): 405, 416.

In re Baby M, slip op A-39-87, p. 51.

Id.

Krimmel H.T. , “The Case Against Surrogate Parenting,” Hastings Center Report (Oct. 1983): 35.

In re Baby M, slip op. A-39-87, p. 5.

Id.: 62.

Id.: 62–68.

Id. 4.

Report of the Committee of Inquiry in Fertilisation and embryology (London: H.M. Stationery Office, Cmnd 9314, 1984).

Brahms D. , “The Hasty British Ban on Commercial Surrogacy,” Hastings Center Report (Feb. 1987): 16.

In re Baby M, slip op. A-39-87, p. 46.

In re Baby Girl D, 517 A.2d 925 (1986).

Radin Margaret Jane , “Market-Inalienability,” Harvard Law Review, 100 (1987): 1849 at 1928–29.

In re Baby M, slip op. A-39-87, p. 21.

Radin, supra note 37, at 1849.

In re Baby M, slip op A-39-87, p. 48.

ACLU Policy #262.

In re Baby M, slip op A-39-87, p. 26.

Radin, supra note 37.

In re Baby M, slip op A-39-87, p. 44.

Id.: 46.

Id.: 45.

Id.: 47.

Id.

704 S.W.2d 209 (Ky. 1986).

Dissenting opinion of Vance, J., 704 S.W. at 214. The contract in the Baby M case was structured in much the same way.

See Brophy , “A Surrogate Mother Contract to Bear a Child,” Journal of Family Law, 20 (1982): 263.

See Note, “Developing a Concept of the Modern ‘Family’: A Proposed Uniform Surrogate Parenthood Act,” Georgetown Law Journal, 73 (1985): 1283.

Two very strong articles by members of my committee add weight to the argument. See Wolf Susan , “Enforcing Surrogate Motherhood Agreements: The Trouble with Specific Performance,” New York Law School Human Rights Annual, vol. 4; Mahoney Joan , “An Essay on Surrogacy and Feminist Thought,” Law, Medicine & Health Care, 16 (1988): 81.

“Waive” means to forgo the exercise of a right. I will distinguish between a current waiver, which takes place at the time the right could have been invoked, and a future waiver (or alienation), which is a promise now to waive a right in the future. See “Rumpelstiltskin Revisited: The Inalienable Rights of Surrogate Mothers,” Harvard Law Review, 99 (1986): 1936, 1941.

See Johnson v. Zerbst, 304 U.S. 458, 464 (1938) (courts must indulge in every reasonable presumption against waiver of fundamental rights); Glasser v. U.S., 315 U.S. 60, 70 (1942) (same presumption applies to rights enumerated in the Bill of Rights).

Brady v. U.S., 397 U.S. 742, 748 (1970) (waiver of right to trial). See Boykin v. Alabama, 393 U.S. 238 (1969); Rubin , “Toward a General Theory of Waiver,” UCLA Law Review, 28 (1981): 478, 487.

See Tribe Lawrence , American Constitutional Law (1978), 469; Kreimer , “Allocational Sanctions: The Problem of Negative Rights in a Positive State,” University of Pennsylvania Law Review, 132 (1984): 1293.

Diaz v. United States, 223 U.S. 442, 455 (1912); Lewis v. U.S., 146 U.S. 370, 372 (1892).

Pate v. Robinson, 383 U.S. 375, 384–85 (1966).

Stevens v. Marks, 383 U.S. 234, 244 (1986).

Rivera v. Marcus, 696 F.2d 1016, 1206 (1982). But see Reimche v. First National Bank of Nevada, 512 F.2d 187 (9th Cir. 1975); In re Shirk's Estate, 186 Kan. 311, 350 P.2d 1 (1960).

The New Jersey Supreme Court refused to enforce the Baby M contract on statutory, not constitutional, grounds.

The Supreme Court has on numerous occasions decided that a person has the right to physical autonomy unless there is a strong countervailing state interest, such as public health (Jacobson v. Massachusetts, 197 U.S. 11 [1905]), or the life of a viable fetus (Roe v. Wade, 410 U.S. 113 [1973]). See Gostin Larry , “The Future of Communicable Disease Control: Toward a New Concept in Public Health Law,” Milbank Quarterly, 64, Supp. 1 (1986): 79–96.

See Rhoden Nancy , “Cesareans and Samaritans,” Law, Medicine & Health Care, 15 (1987): 118–25.

Jefferson v. Griffin Spaulding County Hospital Authority, 274 S.E.2d 457 (Ga. 1981). See Kolder V.E.B. Gallagher J. Parsons M.T. , “Court-Ordered Cesarean Deliveries,” New England Journal of Medicine, 316 (1987): 1192–96.

Macklin Ruth , “Is There Anything Wrong with Surrogate Parenting?: An Ethical Analysis,” Law, Medicine & Health Care, 16 (1988): TK.

428 U.S. 52 (1976).

Id.: 69.

443 U.S. 622 (1979).

See Jones v. Smith, 278 So.2d 339 (Fla. 1973), cert. denied, 415 U.S. 958 (1973) (denying an illegitimate child's potential father the right to prevent the mother from having an abortion); Ponter v. Ponter, 135 N.J. Super. 50, 342 A.2d 574 (Ch. Div. 1975) (denying husband the right to prevent wife from undergoing sterilization).

Coleman , “Surrogate Motherhood: Analysis of the Problems and Suggestions for Solutions,” Tennessee Law Review, 50 (1982): 71, 85; Tribe Lawrence , “The Abortion Funding Conundrum: Inalienable Rights, Affirmative Duties, and the Dilemma of Independence,” Harvard Law Review, 99 (1985): 330, 336.

Parker Phillip , “Motivation of Surrogate Mothers: The Initial Findings,” American Journal of Psychiatry, 140 (1983): 117–18.

McConnell , “The Nature and Basis of Inalienable Rights,” Law and Philosophy, 3 (1984): 25, 41; Radin , supra note 37, at 1898; Robertson , “Procreative Liberty,” supra note 2.

Baby M , slip op A-29-87.

Statement of Margaret Radin and Alexander Capron at a hearing on surrogate parenting before the Senate Committee on Health and Human Resources of the California Legislature, Dec. 11, 1987.

See infra, notes 81–86.

For an excellent discussion of the importance of a woman's unique reproductive capabilities in assessing gender discrimination, see Williams Wendy , “Equality's Riddle: Pregnancy and the Equal Treatment/Special Treatment Debate,” Review of Law & Social Change, 13 (1984): 325–80.

In re Baby M, slip op A-39-87, p. 81.

Id.

The gestational mother's early bonding to and nurturance of the baby is likely to result in her being granted temporary custody. In re Baby M, p. 84. These concerns weigh in favor of both a relatively short period after birth during which the mother can decide whether or not she wishes to retain her parental status and, if she does, an accelerated custody trial.

405 U.S. 645 (1972).

Quilloin v. Walcott, 434 U.S. 246 (1978); Caban v. Mohammed, 441 U.S. 380 (1978); Lehr v. Robertson, 463 U.S. 248 (1983).

Lehr v. Robertson, 463 U.S. 248 (1983).

Quilloin v. Walcott, 434 U.S. 246 (1978); Lehr v. Robertson, 463 U.S. 248 (1983).

Caban v. Mohammed, 441 U.S. 380 (1978).

463 U.S. 248 (1983).