TUESDAY JANUARY 05, 2016 08:00 PM EST

Surrogate Mom Carrying Triplets Sues Birth Father Over Demands That She Abort Child

BY JOHNNY DODD

A lawsuit has been filed in California by a surrogate mom who has been asked to abort one of the triplets she's carrying because the father only wants twins.

The 47-page complaint, file today in Los Angeles Superior Court, details the heart-breaking story of Melissa Cook, a 47-year-old mother of four who has refused to abort the child and now wants the state's surrogacy law declared unconstitutional.

"I have a deep empathy for men who want children," Cook says in a statement released to PEOPLE. "However, I now think that the basic concept of surrogacy arrangements must be re-examined, scrutinized and reconsidered."

Cook was hired for $33,000 by a Georgia man, identified only as "C.M." in court papers, to have a child by in-vitro fertilization, using his sperm and the eggs from a 20-year-old donor. Sometime around nine weeks into her pregnancy, she learned that all three embryos she'd been implanted with had gone on to develop normally.

Soon after informing C.M. that she was carrying triplets, he began demanding that she abort one of the fetuses. "I made my decision which is best," C.M. wrote to Cook, according to court papers.

By November 2015, Cook had refused, informing C.M., a 49-year-old postal worker who lives with his parents, that she would seek custody of one of the children. C.M. replied that he intended to "surrender the child to a stranger in an adoption," according to the documents.

C.M.'s attorney allegedly wrote to Cook, who is now 23 weeks pregnant, warning her that her refusal to undergo an abortion would make her liable "for large money damages."

In today's court filings, Cook's attorneys are arguing that California's surrogate law [one of at least 22 states with similar contractual surrogacy arrangements] violates due-process and equal-protection rights guaranteed in the U.S. Constitution.

"The Surrogacy Contract in this case and the California Surrogacy Enabling Statute will not withstand constitutional scrutiny," says Cook's New Jersey-based attorney Harold Cassidy, who represented the surrogate mother in the high-profile Baby M case during the late 1980s.

"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. The idea that when a mother offers to raise the child that the man wanted her to kill, but the man insists that the child be raised by a stranger instead of the mother who loved him and saved his life, is cruel to the child"

http://www.people.com/article/surrogate-mom-sues-over-abortion?xid=IFT-Trending/

Wait...so a 49y/o man who lives with his parents used a surrogate so he could have twins? Am I missing something?

Wow what's the father on?

I agree with the carrier. She should keep the baby of she wants it.

I think she should keep all three infants. And make him pay child support for his clearly neglectful and abusive behavior. Just the undue stress endangers the entire pregnancy.

How is the father/doctor to determine which fetus survives or is to be terminated. Is he selecting sex? Are they doing tests on all three fetuses? What if they are all less that perfectly healthy? How will he determine which infant is placed for adoption? Clearly it is all about him and his desires for a designer child birth experience not real fatherhood. And he will be a lousy father.

If he did not want to risk a multiple pregnancy he should have contracted that only one embryo be impregnated at the time.

And if any infant was to be placed for any reason that guardianship should have been settled prior to implantion and been mutually agreeable to ALL parties. Like it, or not, the surrogate parent should have rights as she sure has plenty of responsibilities and with out her the pregnancy/infant(s) would not have been possible.

This shows why the surrogacy laws Nationwide need to be uniform and strictly reviewed, and restricted.

It infuriates me that children are being neglected, abused, and even killed while our courts and the supporting state agencies are wasting precious resources fighting out these ridiculous messes. And you the tax payers are paying for rich brats to so irresponsible.

Id love to see the actual terms of their contract

I don't think anyone can force a woman into an abortion legally

I don't know what the contract stated regarding additional children

but it seems complex being that she was the incubator but is neither the mother or the father of the child

if there is adoption, she should certainly be first in line to be considered, at the very least

I side with Solomon on this one.

Abort all the babies.

Then tell the guy if he wants a kid, to go out and get laid.

Tell the surrogate that if she's going to treat her uterus like a flophouse she's going to have to deal with a-hole tenants demanding squatters rights. Especially in California.

She keeps whatever fees the contract specifies that she earned.

I feel for neither of these people.



There's some unbiased journalism right there.
Oh. People magazine. Never mind.

I disagree with any abortion.
My opinion.