Surrogate mothers speak out, but differ on legislation

Cozying up on the couch with a children's book and her four-year-old twins Tommy and Tamara, Charity Lovas is the very picture of a traditional stay at home mom.

But motherhood has taken on expanded meaning for Lovas. The North Branch wife and mother of three is also a surrogate mother of four other children.

"I just delivered my last surrogate baby three weeks ago," she says. "She was a St. Patrick's Day baby."

In three pregnancies - including one set of twins -- Lovas was artificially inseminated, then paid to gestate and deliver the babies for couples who couldn't have kids of their own.

"When you see a mother looking at this baby for the very first time, it is a priceless, priceless image that sticks with you forever," she says.

For Lovas, surrogate parent legislation that's cleared committees in both the Minnesota House and Senate is long overdue. Among other things, the bill would make legally binding the contract between a surrogate mother and the "intended parent or parents."

"It's being done, it's happening, so why don't we put some guidelines in place," says Lovas.

But opponents, including the Minnesota Family Council, claim the bill will encourage "baby selling."

On Tuesday the organization brought together three surrogate mothers whose experiences were opposite Lovas'.

"It's not fair to take one person and exploit them for another person's gain," said Barbara Kroushl who was paid $22,000 to carry and deliver a baby girl in 2002.

"To feel her inside me and moving I bonded with her," said Kroushl who says she had been recently divorced at the time and needed the money. "It's the same thing as prostitution to me." Kroushl says she's regretted her decision to be a surrogate ever since.

Tangy Lambert says she was paid $20,000 to deliver a baby. "I now live with the decision and will regret it forever," she says. "The birth mother is nothing more than a machine purchased to dispense a product."

But for Charity Lovas nothing could be further from the truth. In fact, she's open to carrying another baby. "We created family, and that's what this is about, creating families."

By Boyd Huppert, KARE 11 News

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