I want to talk about what I call "broodmare motherhood" for a moment, this unfortunate surrogate mother situation between Anna Johnson and Mark and Crispina Calvert ruled on last week in Santa Ana.

I'm not going to address Anna Johnson's motives. Frankly, I don't think we have access to them. Nor do I want to embrace the legal, contractual issue. I'm simply concerned about the matter of parenthood. Who are the parents of this little child?

Most of the people I talk to point to the genetic issue. Mark and Crispina Calvert are the genetic parents. That settles the issue for most people.

But think about it for a moment. Everything this child is except for its genetic code came from Anna Johnson--the oxygen, the nutrients, the amniotic fluid, the warmth, the protection, and all the physical and emotional nurture it's known until this point. The content of every cell of that baby's body comes from her. When the Calverts gaze falls upon little Christopher Michael, they are looking on Anna's flesh and blood, not theirs. And more than that, it's been this woman's heartbeat the child has been lying next to for the last 9 months. It has been Anna's breathing it's listened to, it's her voice he's heard through the walls of her womb and the rhythms of her life it's become accustomed to. She is the birth mother, the only mother this little boy has ever known.

Anna Johnson said she intended to simply be a surrogate, but somewhere along the line she "bonded" with the child. The Calverts contest that. "The only bonding she had was with the television camera," Mark Calvert quipped. And what has Mr. Calvert bonded with? He had a five minute relationship with a petri dish, for goodness sakes. Where does he get off criticizing Anna Johnson's bonding? He and his wife simply gave the blueprint; Anna provided all the raw material and the labor, literally.

If you want to discuss the issue of parenthood, in my mind there's no contest; Anna Johnson is mom. Period.

But addressing the broader issue of surrogate parenting I think there's only one solution: it should be outlawed. Frankly, I wish the Calverts had taken their $10,000 down to the local abortion clinic and saved a life rather than jury-rigging an absentee pregnancy.

If they say, "But we want to have our own child." I'm sorry; that decision's already been made for you. Life owes none of us children at any expense. Some limitations just have to accepted. That's what being an adult involves.

The alternative is "rent-a-womb." It makes mothers into broodmares and motherhood into a mercenary occupation. And that's not right.

At least that's the way I see it.