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Contact:  Bill O’Reilly, 212-396-9117
Bill@NovemberTeam.com

Two Surrogate Moms with Triplets being Pressured to Abort Child
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Can a Mother be Contractually Forced to Terminate a Healthy Baby?

San Francisco–Dec. 10…Two California surrogate mothers — both carrying healthy triplets — are being pressured under legal contract to abort one of their babies, and the Governor of California needs to be heard on the matter, the president of the San Francisco-based Center for Bioethics and Culture Network (CBC) today said.

In the first case, which has been widely and internationally reported, the California mother is now at 19 weeks of pregnancy. The second California surrogate, who came forward after reading that she was not alone in her situation, is more than 14 weeks pregnant with triplets. Her name is being withheld upon request. California prohibits aborting fetuses that reach viability, which occurs between 24 and 26 weeks.

“These may be the most important two cases in the age of reproductive technology to date. We implore Governor Brown to take a clear position on them,” CBC President Jennifer Lahl, a former pediatric critical care nurse, said. “Being forced to choose between bankruptcy and one’s deepest personal and religious values is a choice that never should be presented to a mother.  Women have come too far in this country to be treated like breeding animals.”

The CBC has established an emergency fund to help these and other mothers hold true to their convictions,  www.cbc-network.org/unconscionable.

Commercial surrogacy is illegal in Canada and many European and Asian nations. The European Parliament in 2011 passed a resolution calling surrogacy “exploitation of the female body and her reproductive organs.”

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