Opinion ID: 1313999
Heading Depth: 2
Heading Rank: 7

Heading: analysis of the majority's intent test

Text: Faced with the failure of current statutory law to adequately address the issue of who is a child's natural mother when two women qualify under the UPA, the majority breaks the tie by resort to a criterion not found in the UPA  the intent of the genetic mother to be the child's mother. This case presents a difficult issue. The majority's resolution of that issue deserves serious consideration. Ultimately, however, I cannot agree that intent is the appropriate test for resolving this case. The majority offers four arguments in support of its conclusion to rely on the intent of the genetic mother as the exclusive determinant for deciding who is the natural mother of a child born of gestational surrogacy. Careful examination, however, demonstrates that none of the arguments mandates the majority's conclusion. The first argument that the majority uses in support of its conclusion that the intent of the genetic mother to bear a child should be dispositive of the question of motherhood is but-for causation. Specifically, the majority relies on a commentator who writes that in a gestational surrogacy arrangement, `the child would not have been born but for the efforts of the intended parents. (Maj. opn., ante, at p. 94, quoting Hill, What Does It Mean to Be a Parent? The Claims of Biology as the Basis for Parental Rights (1991) 66 N.Y.U.L.Rev. 353, 415, original italics omitted, italics added.) The majority's resort to but-for causation is curious. The concept of but-for causation is a test used in determining tort liability.... (Black's Law Dict. (6th ed. 1990) p. 200.) In California, the test for causation is whether the conduct was a substantial factor in bringing about the event. ( Mitchell v. Gonzales (1991) 54 Cal.3d 1041, 1049, 1054, 1056 [1 Cal. Rptr.2d 913] [disapproving but-for jury instruction in tort cases].) Neither test for causation assists the majority, as I shall discuss. The proposition that a woman who gives birth to a child after carrying it for nine months is a substantial factor in the child's birth cannot reasonably be debated. Nor can it reasonably be questioned that but for the gestational mother, there would not be a child. Thus, the majority's reliance on principles of causation is misplaced. Neither the but for nor the substantial factor test of causation provides any basis for preferring the genetic mother's intent as the determinative factor in gestational surrogacy cases: Both the genetic and the gestational mothers are indispensable to the birth of a child in a gestational surrogacy arrangement. Behind the majority's reliance on but-for causation as justification for its intent test is a second, closely related argument. The majority draws its second rationale from a student note: `The mental concept of the child is a controlling factor of its creation, and the originators of that concept merit full credit as conceivers.' (Maj. opn., ante, at p. 94, quoting Note, Redefining Mother: A Legal Matrix for New Reproductive Technologies (1986) 96 Yale L.J. 187, 196.) The originators of the concept rationale seems comfortingly familiar. The reason it seems familiar, however, is that it is a rationale that is frequently advanced as justifying the law's protection of intellectual property. As stated by one author, an idea belongs to its creator because the idea is a manifestation of the creator's personality or self. (Hughes, The Philosophy of Intellectual Property (1988) 77 Geo. L.J. 287, 330.) Thus, it may be argued, just as a song or invention is protected as the property of the originator of the concept, so too a child should be regarded as belonging to the originator of the concept of the child, the genetic mother. The problem with this argument, of course, is that children are not property. Unlike songs or inventions, rights in children cannot be sold for consideration, or made freely available to the general public. Our most fundamental notions of personhood tell us it is inappropriate to treat children as property. Although the law may justly recognize that the originator of a concept has certain property rights in that concept, the originator of the concept of a child can have no such rights, because children cannot be owned as property. Accordingly, I cannot endorse the majority's originators of the concept or intellectual property rationale for employing intent to break the tie between the genetic mother and the gestational mother of the child. Next, the majority offers as its third rationale the notion that bargained-for expectations support its conclusion regarding the dispositive significance of the genetic mother's intent. Specifically, the majority states that `intentions that are voluntarily chosen, deliberate, express and bargained-for ought presumptively to determine legal parenthood.' (Maj. opn., ante, at p. 94, quoting Schultz, Reproductive Technology, supra, 1990 Wis. L.Rev. at p. 323.) It is commonplace that, in real or personal property transactions governed by contracts, intentions that are voluntarily chosen, deliberate, express and bargained-for ought presumptively to be enforced and, when one party seeks to escape performance, the court may order specific performance. (See, e.g., § 3384 et seq.; 11 Witkin, Summary of Cal. Law (9th ed. 1990) Equity, § 21, p. 698.) But the courts will not compel performance of all contract obligations. For instance, even when a party to a contract for personal services (such as employment) has wilfully breached the contract, the courts will not order specific enforcement of an obligation to perform that personal service. (§ 3390; see 11 Witkin, Summary of Cal. Law, supra, Equity, § 59, p. 736.) The unsuitability of applying the notion that, because contract intentions are voluntarily chosen, deliberate, express and bargained-for, their performance ought to be compelled by the courts is even more clear when the concept of specific performance is used to determine the course of the life of a child. Just as children are not the intellectual property of their parents, neither are they the personal property of anyone, and their delivery cannot be ordered as a contract remedy on the same terms that a court would, for example, order a breaching party to deliver a truckload of nuts and bolts. Thus, three of the majority's four arguments in support of its exclusive reliance on the intent of the genetic mother as determinative in gestational surrogacy cases cannot withstand analysis. And, as I shall discuss shortly, the majority's fourth rationale has merit, but does not support the majority's conclusion. But before turning to the majority's fourth rationale, I shall discuss two additional considerations, not noted by the majority, that in my view also weigh against utilizing the intent of the genetic mother as the sole determinant of the result in this case and others like it. First, in making the intent of the genetic mother who wants to have a child the dispositive factor, the majority renders a certain result preordained and inflexible in every such case: as between an intending genetic mother and a gestational mother, the genetic mother will, under the majority's analysis, always prevail. The majority recognizes no meaningful contribution by a woman who agrees to carry a fetus to term for the genetic mother beyond that of mere employment to perform a specified biological function. The majority's approach entirely devalues the substantial claims of motherhood by a gestational mother such as Anna. True, a woman who enters into a surrogacy arrangement intending to raise the child has by her intent manifested an assumption of parental responsibility in addition to her biological contribution of providing the genetic material. (See Adoption of Kelsey S., supra, 1 Cal.4th at pp. 838, 849.) But the gestational mother's biological contribution of carrying a child for nine months and giving birth is likewise an assumption of parental responsibility. (See Dolgin, Just a Gene: Judicial Assumptions About Parenthood (1993) 40 UCLA L.Rev. 637, 659.) A pregnant woman's commitment to the unborn child she carries is not just physical; it is psychological and emotional as well. The United States Supreme Court made a closely related point in Lehr v. Robertson (1983) 463 U.S. 248 [77 L.Ed.2d 614, 103 S.Ct. 2985], explaining that a father's assertion of parental rights depended on his having assumed responsibility for the child after its birth, whereas a mother's parental relationship is clear because she carries and bears the child. ( Id. at p. 260, fn. 16 [77 L.Ed.2d at p. 626], quoting Caban v. Mohammed (1979) 441 U.S. 380, 397 [60 L.Ed.2d 297, 310, 99 S.Ct. 1760] (dis. opn. of Stewart, J.).) [3] This court too has acknowledged that a pregnant woman and her unborn child comprise a unique physical unit and that the welfare of each is intertwined and inseparable. ( Burgess v. Superior Court (1992) 2 Cal.4th 1064, 1080 [9 Cal. Rptr.2d 615, 831 P.2d 1197].) Indeed, a fetus would never develop into a living child absent its nurturing by the pregnant woman. (See Tribe, American Constitutional Law (2d ed. 1988) at p. 1357, citing Law, Rethinking Sex and the Constitution (1984) 132 U.Pa.L.Rev. 955, 1023.) A pregnant woman intending to bring a child into the world is more than a mere container or breeding animal; she is a conscious agent of creation no less than the genetic mother, and her humanity is implicated on a deep level. Her role should not be devalued. To summarize, the woman who carried the fetus to term and brought a child into the world has, like the genetic mother, a substantial claim to be the natural mother of the child. The gestational mother has made an indispensable and unique biological contribution, and has also gone beyond biology in an intangible respect that, though difficult to label, cannot be denied. Accordingly, I cannot agree with the majority's devaluation of the role of the gestational mother. I find the majority's reliance on intent unsatisfactory for yet another reason. By making intent determinative of parental rights to a child born of a gestational surrogacy arrangement, the majority would permit enforcement of a gestational surrogacy agreement without requiring any of the protections that would be afforded by the Uniform Status of Children of Assisted Conception Act. Under that act, the granting of parental rights to a couple that initiates a gestational surrogacy arrangement would be conditioned upon compliance with the legislation's other provisions. They include court oversight of the gestational surrogacy arrangement before conception, legal counsel for the woman who agrees to gestate the child, a showing of need for the surrogacy, medical and mental health evaluations, and a requirement that all parties meet the standards of fitness of adoptive parents. (USCACA, §§ 5, 6.) In my view, protective requirements such as those set forth in the USCACA are necessary to minimize any possibility in gestational surrogacy arrangements for overreaching or abuse by a party with economic advantage. As the New Jersey Supreme Court recognized, it will be a rare instance when a low income infertile couple can employ an upper income surrogate. ( Matter of Baby M., supra, 537 A.2d 1227, 1249.) The model act's carefully drafted provisions would assure that the surrogacy arrangement is a matter of medical necessity on the part of the intending parents, and not merely the product of a desire to avoid the inconveniences of pregnancy, together with the financial ability to do so. Also, by requiring both pre-conception psychological counseling for all parties and judicial approval, the model act would assure that parties enter into a surrogacy arrangement only if they are legally and psychologically capable of doing so and fully understand all the risks involved, and that the surrogacy arrangement would not be substantially detrimental to the interests of any individual. Moreover, by requiring judicial approval, the model act would significantly discourage the rapid expansion of commercial surrogacy brokerage and the resulting commodification of the products of pregnancy. In contrast, here the majority's grant of parental rights to the intending mother contains no provisions for the procedural protections suggested by the commissioners who drafted the model act. The majority opinion is a sweeping endorsement of unregulated gestational surrogacy. The majority's final argument in support of using the intent of the genetic mother as the exclusive determinant of the outcome in gestational surrogacy cases is that preferring the intending mother serves the child's interests, which are `[u]nlikely to run contrary to those of adults who choose to bring [the child] into being.' (Maj. opn., ante, at p. 94, quoting Schultz, Reproductive Technology, supra, 1990 Wis. L.Rev. at p. 397.) I agree with the majority that the best interests of the child is an important goal; indeed, as I shall explain, the best interests of the child, rather than the intent of the genetic mother, is the proper standard to apply in the absence of legislation. The problem with the majority's rule of intent is that application of this inflexible rule will not serve the child's best interests in every case. I express no view on whether the best interests of the child in this case will be served by determining that the genetic mother is or is not the natural mother under California's Uniform Parentage Act. It may be that in this case the child's interests will be best served by recognizing Crispina as the natural mother. But this court is not just making a rule to resolve this case. Because the UPA does not adequately address the situation of gestational surrogacy, this court is of necessity making a rule that, unless new legislation is enacted, will govern all future cases of gestational surrogacy in California. And all future cases will not be alike. The genetic mother and her spouse may be, in most cases, considerably more affluent than the gestational mother. But [t]he mere fact that a couple is willing to pay a good deal of money to obtain a child does not vouchsafe that they will be suitable parents.... (Capron & Radin, Choosing Family Law Over Contract Law as a Paradigm for Surrogate Motherhood, in Surrogate Motherhood, supra, at pp. 65-66.) It requires little imagination to foresee cases in which the genetic mothers are, for example, unstable or substance abusers, or in which the genetic mothers' life circumstances change dramatically during the gestational mothers' pregnancies, while the gestational mothers, though of a less advantaged socioeconomic class, are stable, mature, capable and willing to provide a loving family environment in which the child will flourish. Under those circumstances, the majority's rigid reliance on the intent of the genetic mother will not serve the best interests of the child.