Baby M: The Legal Fight That Changed Surrogacy Forever

In 1986, a little girl known only as Baby M became the center of one of the most famous court cases in America. Her real name was Melissa Stern and the fight over who her real parents were — the woman who gave birth to her or the couple who had arranged for her birth — changed how people think about surrogacy forever.

The Start of the Story

It all began when William Stern and his wife, Elizabeth, wanted a child. Elizabeth had multiple sclerosis and was worried about the risks of pregnancy, so they looked for another way to have a baby.

William contacted the Infertility Center of New York (ICNY), run by attorney Noel Keane. The center connected them with a woman named Mary Beth Whitehead, who agreed to be a surrogate.

Mary Beth, a high school dropout and mother of two, was married to Richard Whitehead, a truck driver. She answered an ad in the Asbury Park Press that asked for women willing to help infertile couples have children.

The deal was simple on paper: Mary Beth would be artificially inseminated with William Stern’s sperm, carry the baby and give her to the Sterns after birth. For this, she would receive $10,000.

On March 27, 1986, Mary Beth gave birth to a baby girl. She named her Sara Elizabeth Whitehead but three days later, handed her to the Sterns, who renamed her Melissa Elizabeth Stern.

However, the next day, Mary Beth showed up at the Sterns’ house in tears. She begged them to give her baby back, saying she couldn’t live without her.

“She told them that she could not live without her baby… even if only for one week,” the court later said. The Sterns, afraid she might harm herself, agreed to let her take the baby for a short time.

But instead of returning, Mary Beth and her husband fled New Jersey with Baby M. They disappeared for 87 days.

The Runaway

The Whiteheads took Baby M to Florida. The Sterns went to court and a judge ordered that the baby be returned to New Jersey. Warrants were issued for the Whiteheads’ arrest.

During this time, Mary Beth called William Stern several times. On the advice of his lawyer, he recorded the calls. The tapes later became key evidence in court. In one shocking moment, Mary Beth said, “I gave her life. I can take her life away,” and “Forget it, Bill. I’ll tell you right now, I’d rather see me and her dead before you get her.”

Eventually, Baby M was found and brought back to New Jersey.

The case went to trial in 1987 before Judge Harvey R. Sorkow. It was called In re Baby M. It became the first major American case to question whether surrogacy contracts were legal.

Judge Sorkow ruled in favor of the Sterns. He said the contract was valid and that Mary Beth’s parental rights were terminated. Elizabeth Stern, William’s wife, adopted Melissa the same day. The judge said the decision was based on the “best interest of the child.”

Mary Beth didn’t give up. She appealed the case to the Supreme Court of New Jersey. While the court reviewed the appeal, she kept visiting Melissa under the same schedule as before. Once, she even returned the baby wearing a shirt that said, “I have a brother and sister.”

A Major Decision

On February 3, 1988, the New Jersey Supreme Court made a historic decision. Chief Justice Robert Wilentz said that surrogacy contracts were “against public policy.” The court ruled that a woman cannot simply give up her parental rights through a contract.

However, the justices agreed that custody should be decided based on what was best for the child. So they sent the case back to the lower court to figure out who would raise Melissa.

The result was that the Sterns got full custody and Mary Beth was granted visitation rights.

The Baby M case made national headlines. People everywhere argued about what it meant to be a parent. Could someone “buy” the right to a child? Could a woman sign away her motherhood?

Feminists were divided. Some said women should have the freedom to make their own decisions — even to give up a child they carried. Others warned it could lead to the exploitation of poor women who needed money.

The case also pushed lawmakers to think harder about new reproductive technologies. Until Baby M, there were few rules about surrogacy in the United States. Afterward, many states started passing laws to control or ban it.

Even years later, the Baby M case continued to shape legal thinking. In 2009, a similar case — A.G.R. v. D.R.H & S.H. — came up in New Jersey. This time, a woman carried a baby for her brother and his husband using a donated egg and one husband’s sperm.

She wasn’t biologically related to the baby but later claimed parental rights. Judge Francis Schultz relied on In re Baby M and said the gestational mother was still the child’s legal mother. In 2011, another court gave full custody to the biological father.

What Happened After

Mary Beth and her husband Richard divorced not long after the case ended. She later married Dean Gould and they had two children together.

The Whiteheads also sued ICNY and Noel Keane, saying they hadn’t properly explained what the surrogacy agreement meant. They settled out of court. According to reports, Keane and ICNY paid them $30,000 to $40,000.

In 1989, Mary Beth published a book about her experience called A Mother’s Story: The Truth About the Baby M Case.

The Sterns stayed away from the media. Melissa Stern grew up quietly with them. When she turned 18 in 2004, she legally ended Mary Beth’s parental rights and made Elizabeth her legal mother.

“I love my family very much and am very happy to be with them,” Melissa told New Jersey Monthly in 2007. “I’m very happy I ended up with them. I love them, they’re my best friends in the whole world, and that’s all I have to say about it.”

Melissa later graduated from George Washington University with a degree in religion and earned a master’s degree from King’s College London. Her dissertation was titled “Reviving Solomon: Modern Day Questions Regarding the Long-term Implications for the Children of Surrogacy Arrangements.”

From Courtroom to Screen

The case fascinated the whole country and even Hollywood. In 1988, ABC released a TV miniseries called Baby M. JoBeth Williams played Mary Beth Whitehead, John Shea played William Stern, Bruce Weitz was Richard Whitehead, Robin Strasser played Elizabeth Stern, and Dabney Coleman played lawyer Gary Skoloff.

The show received seven Emmy nominations and Shea won for his performance.

Artist Martha Rosler also made a video in 1988 called Born to Be Sold: Martha Rosler Reads the Strange Case of Baby M.

Mary Beth Whitehead was even mentioned in the sitcom Seinfeld in the episode “The Bottle Deposit,” where Jerry’s mechanic, played by Brad Garrett, steals his car after saying Jerry doesn’t care for it properly.More recently, the 2018 movie Private Life also referenced the case.