A surrogate mom is suing to void the part of her surrogacy contract which compels her to abort one of the triplets she’s carrying. Melissa Cook was implanted with three fertilized eggs and, when they all survived, the biological father (the mother was an egg donor) began to demand that she abort one of the three. Cook’s contract with the biological father from Georgia says she would be paid $33,000 for the pregnancy, plus $6,000 for each additional child and the father can demand a pregnancy “reduction.”
As we reported in mid-December, when Ms. Cook refused to have the abortion and offered to keep one of the children as her own, she received a threatening a letter from the father’s lawyer which, among other things, said:
“His remedies where you refuse to abide by the terms of the agreement [abort one of the children]… include, but are not limited to, loss of all benefits under the agreement, damages in relation to future care of the children [and] medical costs associated with any extraordinary care the children may need.”
The New York Post reported earlier this week Ms. Cook’s attorney filed a suit in California State Superior Court claiming “the contract with the biological father and the California surrogate law it relies on violate due-process and equal-protection rights under the US Constitution.”
Cook’s lawsuit claims she is the legal mother of the triplets and seeks custody of at least one who was targeted for abortion. A custody hearing would determine the fate of the other two.
(…)“The notion that a man can demand that a mother terminate the life of one of the children she carries by an abortion, and then claim that she is liable for money damages when she refuses, is cruel to the mother,” Cassidy said.
He said it’s also “cruel to the child” to allow it to be raised by a stranger when Cook wants the baby.
I would suggest that it is even crueler to take the child’s life, especially after seeing all of those Planned Parenthood videos released by the Center For Medical Progress.
“I no longer view surrogacy arrangements in the same favorable light I once did. Children derive a special benefit from their relationship with their mother,” the woman, Melissa Cook, said in a statement to The Post.
“I now think that the basic concept of surrogacy arrangements must be re-examined, scrutinized and reconsidered.”
Under California law, babies cannot be aborted once the baby is considered to be viable outside the womb with medical intervention (sometime between 20-24 weeks). Based on the December report, which said she was in her 17th week, Ms. Cook is around 20 weeks pregnant and may be past that viability stage. Even so, the lawsuit is necessary to protect her from the damages threatened in the father’s attorney’s correspondence.
The pro-abortion forces should be supporting Ms. Cook’s actions: after, all one of their arguments for infanticide is that a woman has a right to make her own decisions about her body. Shouldn’t that same right apply to a mom who doesn’t want to kill her baby?
