Surrogate mom offered $10K to abort baby, flees state to save child

Some stories are so crazy you’d think they originated from a television script instead of from reality. That’s the case with Crystal Kelley, the Connecticut surrogate mom who fled the state to save the child growing inside her.
As CNN reports, Kelley met with a Connecticut couple who had three children and desperately wanted a fourth. The couple seemed attentive and loving, so Kelley agreed to carry their child. On October 8, 2011, frozen embryos were deposited into Kelley’s uterus. Less than two weeks later, tests showed that one of the embryos had taken. Kelley was pregnant, and the couple was overjoyed.
When Kelley was five months pregnant, a routine ultrasound test revealed some alarming news. The baby Kelley was carrying had a complex heart abnormality, a cleft palate, and a cyst in the brain. The doctors told Kelley that the baby would need multiple heart surgeries and have only a 25% chance at a “normal” life.
Soon Kelley’s midwife received a letter from doctors working with the parents. In it, the parents expressed their thoughts on the child’s condition and the action that should be taken. “Given the ultrasound findings, [the parents] feel that the interventions required to manage [the baby's medical problems] are overwhelming for an infant, and that it is a more humane option to consider pregnancy termination.”
The previously wanted and anticipated child was now sentenced to death. Kelley declared that she was opposed to termination and wanted to give the child a chance. Then the story gets even crazier: the parents made Kelley an offer of $10,000 to abort the child.
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