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In such a free-for-all atmosphere, the courts have been increasingly forced to intervene. A typical case was Syrkowski vs. Appleyard in Michigan. George Syrkowski and his wife had contracted to pay Corinne Appleyard $10,000 to bear his child, but a state court refused to recognize him as the father. Detroit Circuit Court Judge Roman Gribbs ruled in 1981 that surrogate arrangements are not for a court to approve but are "matters of legislative concern." However, Michigan has no state laws regulating the hiring of surrogate mothers, an omission that Richard Fitzpatrick, a Democrat in the state legislature, has been trying to correct for three years. His latest attempt is a comprehensive proposal requiring that all births involving third parties be covered by contracts, and that the "societal parents" (i.e., those who plan to rear the baby) have "all parental rights and responsibilities for a child, regardless of the condition of the child, conceived through a fertility technique." At the same time, another Michigan legislator has drafted a rival law making all surrogate parenting a crime punishable by up to 90 days in prison and a $10,000 fine for a first offense. Both legislators hope the issue will come to a vote this fall—presumably after Election Day.
Political caution about what voters want—together with the legal uncertainties about invasions of privacy—are likely to continue to inhibit government action in a field where some guidelines seem sorely needed. Congressman Gore, a Tennessean with four children aged eleven, seven, five and two, is keenly aware of the mixed feelings that the new technologies can arouse. Says he: "There is something unnatural, even violent, about a procedure that takes a newborn from its mother's arms and gives it to another by virtue of a contract. But I don't think I'm in favor of outlawing it. The touching search for children may justify a great many things that make others of us who are more fortunate uncomfortable."
—By Otto Friedrich. Reported by Anne Constable/Washington and Raji Samghabadi/New York, with other bureaus