I am not making this up:
James O. Flynn is 63 years old and the head of Cleveland State University's Department of Operations Management and Business Statistics. He has no children and he is not married. But he had a desire to "leave something behind when I die," so he and his girlfriend, 60-year old retired dentist Eileen Donich, decided to have children.
Presumably because Donich's age makes her unfit for pregnancy, Flynn searched out a surrogate mother. The firm Surrogate Mothers Inc. hooked him up with 27-year old Danielle Bimber who lives near Erie, PA. Bimber, an unmarried mother of 3 children, was paid $24,000 for being a surrogate. It's money she could use since she has only had low-wage jobs and declared bankruptcy a couple of years ago.
But you can't use a uterus without sperm and egg, so an egg donor had to be found for Flynn's sperm. They found one in Jennifer Michelle Rice, a college student in Texas.
So Jennifer's eggs from Texas met James's sperm from Cleveland and they moved into Danielle's womb in Pennsylvania. But there's so much more...
Just short of 9 months later, Bimber gave birth to triplets. But Flynn never came to pick them up, citing paperwork and insurance delays. The hospital prepared to hand them over to foster care. Bimber, in apparent disbelief at the situation, got permission to take them home to her family. Flynn sued for custody in Pennsylvania court.
But Pennsylvania has no surrogate law, so the decision was up to the judge. Unimpressed with Flynn's testimony, he gave custody to Bimber but gave Flynn visitation and said the babies could have Flynn's name. And Flynn had to pay child support.
But Flynn wants full custody, so the case is on appeal.
And then there's Ms. Rice. Remember her, the egg donor? Well, she filed for parental rights, too. A Pennsyvania court denied her request, but an Ohio court said she should be able to make her case. So now she's in the mix, too.
Two couples and one woman. None of them want to be married, but all want to be parents.
This absurd situation is now being decided by court cases pending in 3 states.
Sources:
http://www.akronlegalnews.com/news_fs.tpl?story=1
http://www.phillyburbs.com/pb-dyn/news/103-05012005-483327.html
4 comments:
awesome. you know, there are triplets...let them each take a kid. :)
Never thought of that. Maybe you should go to law school!
This reminds me of the Seinfeld when Kramer and Elaine had a bike dispute so they went to Newman who ruled that the bike should be cut in half.
nah, 3 years of law school was enough. I've already learned how to rape and pillage corporate america's coffers, this family law stuff is a bore.
The final round of this was the most boneheaded ones. They took the toddlers (almost 3 years old) from the surrogate who'd had them since birth and before and gave them to the biological father and his girlfriend, both in their sixties, to raise. They will never see the woman they knew as mom again.
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