The Nation - News from March 29, 1988

William Stern testified that Baby M should be kept from her biological mother for several years to protect the child from emotional harm and exploitation. Stern, testifying for 2 1/2 hours at a custody hearing in Hackensack, N.J., characterized surrogate mother Mary Beth Whitehead-Gould as capable of undermining his relationship with the child, legally known as Melissa Stern. The hearing was ordered by the New Jersey Supreme Court in its landmark Feb. 3 decision that declared surrogacy-for-pay illegal and restored Whitehead-Gould’s parental rights, but left intact a judge’s order awarding custody of the child to the Sterns. Stern and his wife, Elizabeth, of Tenafly, are seeking to cut off contact between Melissa and Whitehead-Gould, perhaps until the child’s 10th birthday. Whitehead-Gould now visits the child once a week for two hours.