This story blows my mind! Former View host Sherri Shepherd paid nearly $100,000 to a fertility clinic in order to have a surrogacy-born son with her husband Lamar Sally. Sherri has no DNA ties to the baby, as her eggs were unusable, and Lamar's sperm was used to fertilize a donor's eggs. This was agreed upon and contractually bound by the couple. Yet, midway through the pregnancy, Sherri and Lamar separated and ultimately divorced, at which time, Sherri stopped paying for prenatal care and no longer wanted the baby.
As an outsider looking in, I cannot account first-hand how any of the parties must feel. But from the outside looking in, Sherri Shepherd is absolutely ridiculous for thinking she can return a baby! While I understand Sherri has no DNA ties, a decision was made -- with this in mind -- to bring another life in the world. Not only that, there are many people struggling to have a child. Finding a surrogate that agrees to such a physical and life-changing decision to help someone, only for that family to change their mind and stick her with the bills well along in the pregnancy, is insane. Fortunately, a recent Superior Court ruling deemed that Sherri Shepherd is in fact responsible for the child, despite her naming the surrogate as mother on the birth certificate. Shepherd is ordered to pay $4,100 per month in child support to ex-husband Lamar Sally who is raising their child, and following their son's 13th birthday, support increases to $4,600.
No one wants to think about a mother abandoning a child. Given she has no biological ties, it makes for an interesting debate. But, once you sign on the dotted line, a contract is in effect. It is hard for me to feel sorry for Shepherd who is not only abandoning an innocent child, but also an obligation she had with her ex-husband and a kind-hearted stranger, willing enough to give and carry a life that Shepherd herself was unable to create. I have never been a fan of couples in trouble or rough relationships having babies. Relationships are stressful enough with just the two of you. Why add the stress of a baby when you have not worked out all the unresolved kinks amongst each other? Children should be raised in a nurturing environment without being in the middle of parent strife. Shepherd and Sally had to know they were at odds long before agreeing to have this child and as such, I am happy to say I agree with the courts. Shepherd owes a responsibility to the child and Sally. One-year-old Lamar Junior was born. No returns accepted.
-Leslie Osmond
Photo courtesy http://www.eurweb.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/03/Lamar-Sally-and-baby.jpg
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