Surrogate Mother Refuses to "Selectively Reduce" Twins

By Liz Townsend

Twin unborn babies are at the center of a legal battle between their surrogate mother and the couple who paid her to carry the babies. But rather than fighting over which of them should keep the children, the two sides are feuding because the surrogate mother refused to kill one of the babies in a second-trimester abortion.

When they wrote the contract hiring a surrogate mother to carry their child to term, Californians Charles Wheeler and Martha Berman made sure they would only have to care for one baby. They added a clause that gave them the option of making the surrogate have a "selective-reduction" abortion if more than one child was conceived, Time magazine reported.

After an ultrasound examination showed that surrogate mother Helen Beasley was carrying twins, the couple demanded that she fly from her home in England to California to abort one of them, according to Time. Beasley was willing to go, but when the scheduled date of the abortion was delayed until after the 12th week of pregnancy, she decided it was too late and refused to have the abortion, according to Time.

At that point Beasley says that the couple and their lawyer presented her with the options of either aborting one baby as requested or terminating both and still getting paid, Time reported. "Basically they don't want two babies and although we did have it in the contract that if there was multiples we would reduce, they left it too late in arranging the appointment to reduce them," Beasley told the BBC. "I thought I just couldn't do it."

Beasley added that she was concerned that her own health would be put at risk with a second-trimester abortion. "There is a risk to the other baby as well," she told the BBC. "If you are reducing one and the risk of miscarriage is higher, you could lose both of them."

As NRL News goes to press, the babies' fate after their birth, expected in November, is still unclear. Neither Beasley nor Wheeler and Berman want to raise the twins, according to Time.

Beasley told Time that both sides had offered to find other potential parents but that they "fought over what - - if anything - - the newcomers would pay Wheeler and Berman for their in vitro fertilization and donor-egg expenses."

Beasley has also filed a lawsuit in California charging that the couple has not paid the $20,000 fee they agreed to, according to Time. Beasley also filed a petition in family court to have Wheeler and Berman's parental rights terminated.

Since the surrogacy contract was signed in California, the intended parents have all legal rights to the children, Time reported. British law, on the other hand, gives the surrogate mother until six weeks after the baby's birth to either keep or relinquish parental rights.

The couple, both San Francisco-based lawyers, met Beasley, a legal secretary from Shrewsbury, England, on a web site for surrogate parents, the Associated Press (AP) reported. After agreeing to carry their child, Beasley was impregnated by in vitro fertilization with sperm from Wheeler and an egg from a donor.

Wheeler and Berman have not spoken publicly about why they refuse to raise the twins. Their lawyer, Diane Michelson, would only say, "Family-building is a very private matter," according to the AP.