A surrogate mother from California has come forward, sharing her heartbreaking experience of being threatened with a lawsuit by a gay couple when she expressed her unwillingness to abort the unborn son she was carrying for them.
Brittney Pearson, a 37-year-old woman from Sacramento, revealed that these threats occurred after she was diagnosed with an aggressive form of breast cancer during her second trimester. Tragically, the unborn baby boy has since passed away.
“The first thing I thought after I was diagnosed was I want to keep this baby safe and bring it earthside,” she told the Daily Mail. “I would have been there, I would have given him every chance of survival. I had people ready to help.”
Pearson was approximately 24 weeks pregnant when the gay couple asked her to abort, even though it was possible for the baby to survive outside the womb.
They are like, “we want the baby terminated, which to me was wild because they had spent so much money and time and so many people involved to get them a baby,” Pearson said in an interview with Allie Beth Stuckey. “For them to just pull the plug, we are done.”
“They wanted no life saving measures if the baby was born alive,” she said. “They wanted the baby completely gone.”
According to Pearson, the men contended that the baby might face health challenges if born prematurely. She added that they expressed reluctance towards her or any adoptive couple raising the child, as they were concerned about their DNA being “out there.”
Pearson, who is a mother of four, alleged that the men further threatened legal action against her agency and medical provider. Her oncology team, facing the threat of legal action, expressed uncertainty about proceeding with chemotherapy and indicated that they would have to seek advice from their own legal counsel.
During this challenging time, Pearson reached out to Jennifer Lahl, president of the Center for Bioethics and Culture. Lahl explained that Pearson expressed her desire to deliver the baby prematurely and initiate chemotherapy in an attempt to save both their lives.
“But California law recognizes the contracting intended parents in surrogacy arrangements as the legal parents, they alone can make decisions around the care of the baby. In this case, refusing care,” Lahl explained in an article on the CBC website. “The rights of the mother to direct her own care are undermined, not even allowing her to advocate for her own needs and the needs of the baby she’s about to deliver.”
Lahl also said that one of Pearson’s doctors was aware of a family interested in adopting the baby, but the gay couple who had employed Pearson declined the offer and “asked that no life-saving measures be performed on the baby if he was born alive.”
In order the start her chemotherapy, since her cancer had spread to her liver, Pearson found a hospital to induce birth. The child was born on Father’s Day June 18, but died soon after. So far she has not explained the details around the child’s death, only to say the infant was held by her mother and loved right after birth. The Gay couple, who never saw the baby, insisted the child be cremated.
This is just one example of how surrogacy places the desires of adults above the rights of children while exploiting mothers’ bodies for financial purposes. Not only is the child purchased as a commodity, but he or she is also intentionally separated from one or both of their parents, violating the natural right of a child to his or her mother and father. Adults do not have the right to a child, but every child has the right to their biological parents and the right to life, regardless of the circumstances.
To make matters worse, California has a bill making its way through the legislative process, SB 729, that redefines “infertility” in a way that would require insurance companies to pay for the medical costs of surrogates for same sex couples and for celebate singles who want children.
With such a law in place, heartbreaking stories such as Pearson’s will only become more common as babies will be bought and sold as commodities, rather than treated as individuals with rights of their own.
