Latest / The Bill Handel Show / RIP Dolly Parton | CA Couple Confront Their Surrogate in Texas Court
Transcript
- 0:00Speaker 1: You're listening to Bill Handel on demand from KFI AM 640.
- 0:04Speaker 1: You are listening to the Bill Handel Show.
- 0:18Speaker 2: KFI AM 640 Bill Handel on a Wednesday morning, August 26.
- 0:24Speaker 2: A couple of big stories we are looking at. There
- 0:28Speaker 2: was that flash flood. uh, in a Paul, have you
- 0:31Speaker 2: seen video of that? I mean, that is incredible. This
- 0:35Speaker 2: flood comes down and not only overruns this, what five
- 0:38Speaker 2: or six story building, but the parking structure next to
- 0:42Speaker 2: it sweeps away a parking structure. And, uh, they have
- 0:48Speaker 2: no idea how many people are actually dead and that
- 0:50Speaker 2: we're walking around underneath. It was a public building, uh,
- 0:53Speaker 2: and with lots of people and in the entrance and
- 0:56Speaker 2: the parking structure, it was a tourist, uh, It was
- 0:59Speaker 2: a tourist destination. Okay, news yesterday that affected everybody who
- 1:04Speaker 2: likes music. As a matter of fact, everybody who is
- 1:07Speaker 2: proud to be an American is that Dolly Parton music star.
- 1:15Speaker 2: She was an actress, an actor, and was a super
- 1:20Speaker 2: bright businesswoman, controlled her finances and her career from day one.
- 1:26Speaker 2: Just a super smart lady. And she died yesterday at
- 1:29Speaker 2: the age of 80. And she was so influential and
- 1:34Speaker 2: so loved that ever since then, I've been watching CNN
- 1:38Speaker 2: and Fox. I mean, a lot of these stations have
- 1:40Speaker 2: been going wall to wall coverage. even to the point of,
- 1:44Speaker 2: and this is where it got a little ridiculous, uh,
- 1:47Speaker 2: interviewing anybody who had ever talked to her, walked next
- 1:51Speaker 2: to her, ran into her in the parking lot. Uh,
- 1:54Speaker 2: anybody who had any connection with Dolly Parton and everybody
- 1:57Speaker 2: talking about their guilt. I mean, the reality is about, uh,
- 2:00Speaker 2: not about their guilt, about how, uh, how horrible they're
- 2:03Speaker 2: feeling about, uh, her death. And it's true. It went
- 2:06Speaker 2: across all lines. Uh, even the point where a president Trump, uh, asked, uh, or, uh,
- 2:13Speaker 2: He announced and ordered the flag, American flag, to be
- 2:17Speaker 2: flown at half staff on governmental buildings for a week.
- 2:21Speaker 2: And I don't know who else he has even done
- 2:23Speaker 2: that for in terms of someone in the entertainment business.
- 2:28Speaker 2: And the story, of course, she basically grew up in
- 2:31Speaker 2: an Abraham Lincoln log cabin is what she did. One
- 2:35Speaker 2: of 12 kids growing up in East Tennessee, poor as dirt.
- 2:41Speaker 2: I mean, it was a cabin with no running water,
- 2:43Speaker 2: no electricity, 14 people living in a cabin, like a
- 2:48Speaker 2: one-room cabin. How do you do that? Her father and
- 2:51Speaker 2: her mother, very, very poor, but as she described it,
- 2:54Speaker 2: lots and lots of love in the family. And even
- 2:58Speaker 2: though I guess they knew they were poor in her
- 3:00Speaker 2: songs she wrote, but we were rich in love. Now, normally,
- 3:04Speaker 2: and I'm the biggest cynic in the world, I would go,
- 3:08Speaker 2: come on, give me a break. You were rich in love.
- 3:11Speaker 2: What a crock. You know, that's just lyrics for a song.
- 3:15Speaker 2: I gotta tell you, you believe every word of this.
- 3:19Speaker 2: Every word of this. She graduated high school and right
- 3:24Speaker 2: out of high school, well, she'd been singing in churches
- 3:28Speaker 2: while she was 10 years old. The family did a
- 3:29Speaker 2: lot of singing. Matter of fact, later on on television shows,
- 3:33Speaker 2: it was a singing family. You saw the entire family
- 3:37Speaker 2: singing with her. She brought her mom, her dad, her
- 3:41Speaker 2: brothers and her sisters, and the whole family was singing
- 3:44Speaker 2: in front of these TV shows in the South, these
- 3:48Speaker 2: country Western shows. And so right out of high school,
- 3:52Speaker 2: she started singing professionally, connected with a couple of major
- 3:58Speaker 2: country Western stars. I started writing her music almost immediately.
- 4:03Speaker 2: As a matter of fact, I came to the table
- 4:04Speaker 2: with a bunch of songs she has written. What I
- 4:07Speaker 2: didn't know yesterday is, was that she had written almost
- 4:10Speaker 2: 3,000 songs. And we were listening. Linz and I were
- 4:15Speaker 2: in the car, and we were listening to the music
- 4:20Speaker 2: for a little while. And it was just one song
- 4:23Speaker 2: after another on Sirius. And it was, you recognize every
- 4:29Speaker 2: single song. Oh, my God. Yeah, of course I know
- 4:31Speaker 2: that one. Oh, yeah, I know that one. I mean,
- 4:33Speaker 2: some iconic songs. 49 albums. 3,000 songs, some iconic songs,
- 4:43Speaker 2: three major films, countless TV shows, nine Grammys, nominated more
- 4:50Speaker 2: times than any other female singer other than, I think,
- 4:54Speaker 2: Beyonce and Taylor Swift. A hundred million albums sold over
- 5:02Speaker 2: her career. She created Dollywood. Because she needed the money? No.
- 5:08Speaker 2: She wanted to bring jobs and she wanted to bring
- 5:13Speaker 2: commercial activity to where she grew up. And Dollywood is
- 5:17Speaker 2: hugely successful. And she became immensely wealthy. She started this
- 5:22Speaker 2: foundation to help kids read, to give free books to
- 5:27Speaker 2: various organizations, libraries, nonprofits. And I sort of knew that
- 5:31Speaker 2: about her foundation. I didn't know the numbers. Yesterday, it
- 5:36Speaker 2: was reported, and I was, again, watching the news on
- 5:38Speaker 2: this 300 million books. 300 million books. This isn't just,
- 5:45Speaker 2: here you go, here's 20,000 books or 15,000 books. And
- 5:49Speaker 2: the amount of money she gave during COVID, she gave
- 5:52Speaker 2: enormous amounts of money. They're talking about the hundreds of
- 5:56Speaker 2: millions of dollars that she donated as a philanthropist.
- 6:00Speaker 3: You know why her focus on books was so important?
- 6:04Speaker 3: Her parents were both illiterate.
- 6:06Speaker 2: Her dad had a— well, he was literate, but had a
- 6:09Speaker 2: very hard time learning English. When you talk about her
- 6:13Speaker 2: dad was illiterate, the way we describe illiteracy, probably. I mean,
- 6:17Speaker 2: he had the ability, but very rudimentary. I would agree
- 6:22Speaker 2: with you. Basically illiterate. It's just— she was— you know, she comes
- 6:27Speaker 2: across as this sort of ditzy, big-bosomed— She always made
- 6:34Speaker 2: fun of her boobs, by the way. She called them
- 6:36Speaker 2: shock and awe. It was just, yeah. Someone once said
- 6:41Speaker 2: that it was at her. She had 10 pounds or
- 6:46Speaker 2: 200 pounds of mud in a five-pound bag or something funny.
- 6:50Speaker 2: Very self-deprecating. But when you look at who she was
- 6:53Speaker 2: and what she did, I mean, absolutely brilliant. Controlled her
- 6:59Speaker 2: finances from day one. This isn't one of those stories
- 7:04Speaker 2: where someone took advantage of her, a business manager or
- 7:08Speaker 2: an agent. Yeah, Amy, you were about to say something.
- 7:10Speaker 4: I was just going to say that Elvis wanted to
- 7:13Speaker 4: record I Think I Will Always Love You. He wanted
- 7:16Speaker 4: to record one of her songs and she wouldn't give
- 7:18Speaker 4: up the publishing to it. And so he didn't do it.
- 7:22Speaker 4: I mean, she was smart about all of that stuff.
- 7:24Speaker 2: Really smart. I mean, across the board. Great actress, obviously
- 7:28Speaker 2: an unbelievable singer, a tremendous songwriter. I mean, all of it. Businesswoman.
- 7:34Speaker 2: I mean, she hit it. And loved by everybody. No
- 7:37Speaker 2: one has ever said a bad word about her. Everybody
- 7:40Speaker 2: loved her. Even Will, he talked about being an extra
- 7:47Speaker 2: on one of the shows she was on. And I asked,
- 7:51Speaker 2: so Will, how gracious was she? Oh, no, I didn't
- 7:53Speaker 2: talk to her. We were told you don't go near her. No.
- 7:56Speaker 2: Thank you for the story. It wasn't her. It's just,
- 7:58Speaker 2: you know, we were on a tight schedule. Okay. Anyway,
- 8:03Speaker 2: very gracious to everybody. Knew everybody's name just on the sets. Oh,
- 8:07Speaker 2: there's one story I want to share with you. I
- 8:10Speaker 2: think Lily Tomlin said this, and Jane Fonda also said this,
- 8:13Speaker 2: that when she showed up her first day of filming
- 8:15Speaker 2: on 9 to 5, she came up and had memorized
- 8:19Speaker 2: every line of every part in that movie. She didn't
- 8:23Speaker 2: know that she was only supposed to memorize her lines.
- 8:27Speaker 2: So she came in knowing every line in the movie,
- 8:31Speaker 2: and everybody thought that was hilarious. And she's smart. She
- 8:34Speaker 2: was smart enough to pull that off. I don't know
- 8:35Speaker 2: how many of us would. Okay, we're done with that. Okay, now,
- 8:40Speaker 2: a little bit about AI. And this has to do
- 8:43Speaker 2: with Bill Gates. Now, when Bill Gates talks, people listen because, oh,
- 8:48Speaker 2: I don't know, he's Bill Gates. He founded Microsoft, a
- 8:51Speaker 2: big philanthropist, set up the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation,
- 8:54Speaker 2: $ 50 billion or $ 80 billion. And he was super optimistic
- 9:00Speaker 2: about AI and what the world would become a much
- 9:03Speaker 2: better place thanks to AI. And he imagined this technology
- 9:07Speaker 2: freeing people from work, speeding up inventions that would fight diseases,
- 9:12Speaker 2: fight climate change. Well, he just wrote a new essay.
- 9:16Speaker 2: And all of a sudden, he is worried and saying
- 9:19Speaker 2: that AI could do more harm than good. And he's
- 9:22Speaker 2: actually scared of what could go wrong with AI without
- 9:27Speaker 2: absent or absent urgent intervention. I mean, like right now.
- 9:31Speaker 2: Over the past year, he said he's grown alarmed about
- 9:33Speaker 2: the technology's increasing capabilities to complete workplace tasks, go on
- 9:39Speaker 2: hacking sprees. That's a big one. And most of all,
- 9:42Speaker 2: he's worried about the lack of progress in regulating AI
- 9:46Speaker 2: and minimizing its downsize. Now, I have often said, and
- 9:51Speaker 2: this is absolutely true, is technology moves ahead at an
- 9:56Speaker 2: increasing faster rate. and Laws that govern technology or deal
- 10:01Speaker 2: with it, and this is any scientific endeavor, laws that
- 10:05Speaker 2: govern it are way far behind because society has to
- 10:09Speaker 2: deal with all this. And where technology just moves ahead,
- 10:13Speaker 2: laws have to be discussed. They have to be passed.
- 10:17Speaker 2: They have to be looked at. All the parties have
- 10:20Speaker 2: to be involved. And so they move at a much
- 10:24Speaker 2: slower pace. Well, because technology is moving so quickly, then
- 10:28Speaker 2: the law in society is falling farther and farther behind.
- 10:32Speaker 2: Nothing is moving as quickly as AI. I mean, that
- 10:35Speaker 2: is crazy. And so what is going on? Well, Gates
- 10:40Speaker 2: says that he's not alone in saying, hey, this is
- 10:42Speaker 2: scary stuff, really scary stuff. And we need a lot
- 10:47Speaker 2: more intervention. We need a lot more governmental intervention. We
- 10:51Speaker 2: need a lot more societal intervention. And he's not the
- 10:54Speaker 2: only person to share concerns. This is a new one.
- 10:57Speaker 2: Even the CEOs of AI companies are saying, whoa, this
- 11:02Speaker 2: thing is moving way too fast. Doesn't mean that they're
- 11:05Speaker 2: not going at as fast a clip as they possibly can.
- 11:09Speaker 2: What they're saying is we're frightened also. Now, you don't
- 11:13Speaker 2: usually see that where the people who create this technology
- 11:18Speaker 2: are saying, wow, we had better look at the outcome first.
- 11:21Speaker 2: and what we can do with this without any kind
- 11:25Speaker 2: of laws. For example, the analogy I bring up is
- 11:29Speaker 2: the creation of the atomic bomb, where the technology moved
- 11:33Speaker 2: at a rapid pace, and the only thing that was necessary,
- 11:35Speaker 2: let's get the technology, let's get the technology moving, boom,
- 11:39Speaker 2: it hits Japan. And now, what do we do with
- 11:42Speaker 2: the bomb? And that is a much more difficult issue
- 11:49Speaker 2: to deal with than just creation of the science. So
- 11:53Speaker 2: Gates is saying he sees a collaboration of elected official,
- 11:57Speaker 2: experts in AI, citizens working on AI oversight. He doesn't
- 12:04Speaker 2: say what. He doesn't say how it's going to happen.
- 12:08Speaker 2: All he says is we had better sit down and
- 12:13Speaker 2: figure out What's going to happen? And the problem is,
- 12:17Speaker 2: how do you deal and how do you pass laws
- 12:19Speaker 2: and oversight in an area in which you have no
- 12:22Speaker 2: idea where it's going? That's the other thing. No idea.
- 12:29Speaker 2: What are the laws relating to the Internet? Well, they're
- 12:33Speaker 2: just starting to deal with the laws. For example, Meta
- 12:37Speaker 2: just agreed to pay over $ 16 billion as part of
- 12:40Speaker 2: a settlement because the lawsuit there was the allegation that
- 12:45Speaker 2: the company designed Facebook and Instagram to addict children. Now,
- 12:50Speaker 2: when they first came out, when Insta first came out
- 12:53Speaker 2: and Facebook first came out, did people even think about that?
- 12:57Speaker 2: that kids would be addicted and they had planned on
- 13:00Speaker 2: addicting kids? No, I don't think anybody thought of that,
- 13:02Speaker 2: but it happened. The technology happened because the algorithm was created.
- 13:09Speaker 2: And now, okay, now there are laws being passed. Now
- 13:13Speaker 2: there are settlements. Now there are lawsuits. And how long
- 13:17Speaker 2: has it been since this allegation has been around? That's
- 13:20Speaker 2: the point. Okay, before I jump into the surrogacy story, yeah,
- 13:25Speaker 2: what a story. Neil, an iHeart Festival mention.
- 13:30Speaker 3: Yes, our 16th annual iHeart Radio Music Festival is presented
- 13:34Speaker 3: by Capital One, and it's back September 18th and 19th
- 13:39Speaker 3: at the T-Mobile Arena in Las Vegas. Two nights, one stage.
- 13:44Speaker 3: Live performances by BTS, Benson Boone, Snoop Dogg, Weezer, and more.
- 13:50Speaker 3: Tickets are still available, but they're going fast. Get them
- 13:54Speaker 3: before they're gone at axs.com.
- 13:59Speaker 2: Okay. As I said earlier, today is Wednesday, August 26.
- 14:03Speaker 2: I want you to calendar today, uh, because I'm about
- 14:06Speaker 2: to do a legal topic of which I actually know
- 14:09Speaker 2: what I'm talking about. Uh, this is a very, very
- 14:13Speaker 2: rare occurrence. I've been doing handle on the law for
- 14:16Speaker 2: decades and decades. And, uh, I want you to calendar
- 14:20Speaker 2: August 26, 2026, because I know what I'm talking about. Okay.
- 14:25Speaker 2: This is a surrogacy case. And that was my entire
- 14:28Speaker 2: practice is surrogate parenting. And there is a fight going
- 14:32Speaker 2: on in Texas right now. There's a California couple. That's important.
- 14:37Speaker 2: Having gone into a relationship with a surrogate mother. She's
- 14:42Speaker 2: from Alaska, which is not particularly important. But she's in
- 14:46Speaker 2: Texas in front of a Texas court. That is important.
- 14:50Speaker 2: And it has to do with the health of this baby.
- 14:54Speaker 2: All right. So they sign a contract in California. California
- 14:57Speaker 2: law says that the intended parents, in this case, the couple,
- 15:03Speaker 2: are the legal parents of the child. Law is crystal clear.
- 15:07Speaker 2: The law was written that way. I was involved in
- 15:09Speaker 2: writing the law. My contract went up to the California
- 15:13Speaker 2: Supreme Court. in which the California Supreme Court upheld the
- 15:17Speaker 2: premise that the parents, the intended parents, are the legal
- 15:21Speaker 2: parents of the child. So as the baby is born,
- 15:26Speaker 2: why does she go to Texas to have the baby?
- 15:29Speaker 2: Because there is no issue that in California she's the parent.
- 15:35Speaker 2: And there probably isn't much of an issue in Texas
- 15:38Speaker 2: because it's a California judgment that says they're mom and dad. Texas,
- 15:44Speaker 2: in terms of abortion, has a whole different way of
- 15:48Speaker 2: looking at it than California does. Abortion in California is
- 15:52Speaker 2: obviously not only legal, it's protected. Texas, no. Texas is
- 15:57Speaker 2: a southern state. They have very different laws. Now, let
- 16:00Speaker 2: me tell you a word about the surrogacy contract itself,
- 16:03Speaker 2: and they're almost universally the same. I wrote my first
- 16:06Speaker 2: surrogacy contract, which is one of the first two or
- 16:09Speaker 2: three written in the country. And in the contract, it
- 16:13Speaker 2: specifically says that the couple can ask for an abortion
- 16:19Speaker 2: in the event that the child is deemed anomalous. Now,
- 16:23Speaker 2: in the days of Roe v. Wade, we had in
- 16:26Speaker 2: huge end-of-the-world headlines on the contract is even though the
- 16:30Speaker 2: surrogate mother agrees to have an abortion, if the couple
- 16:35Speaker 2: asks for it, upon the... Determination that child is anomalous
- 16:41Speaker 2: has a very serious anomaly where it's either going to
- 16:44Speaker 2: probably die, either die in utero or die within the
- 16:48Speaker 2: first couple of years or go through incredible pain, that
- 16:51Speaker 2: sort of thing. Tay-Sachs, for example. Tay-Sachs disease is a
- 16:55Speaker 2: terminal disease. Children do not survive past several years, and
- 17:01Speaker 2: it is horrible to have. An abortion would be totally
- 17:05Speaker 2: appropriate if Tay-Sachs were found. Okay, so that's the contract
- 17:09Speaker 2: said that even though the couple has the right to
- 17:13Speaker 2: ask for an abortion under those circumstances and the surrogate
- 17:17Speaker 2: agrees to do it. End of the world headlines. You
- 17:20Speaker 2: can't force a surrogate mother. It's going to be her
- 17:23Speaker 2: choice come hell or high water. Okay, with that being said.
- 17:30Speaker 2: And it's the couple's embryo, by the way. They are
- 17:33Speaker 2: the genetic parents. It was their egg, their sperm that
- 17:36Speaker 2: went into the surrogate mother. So she is not biologically
- 17:39Speaker 2: connected in any way to that child other than carrying
- 17:44Speaker 2: the child. Basically, womb for rent is what we used
- 17:47Speaker 2: to call it. Isn't that clever? And so there she is.
- 17:52Speaker 2: They discover the anomaly. And they ask for the abortion.
- 17:59Speaker 2: Now what? And this has to do with the case
- 18:03Speaker 2: that has international implications. I mean, there's been covered all
- 18:06Speaker 2: over the world. California couple, important, had a relationship with
- 18:12Speaker 2: a surrogate mother, clearly important. The surrogate mother was implanted
- 18:16Speaker 2: with their egg and sperm, their embryo. And there was
- 18:20Speaker 2: a contract, a California contract. That's also very important. So
- 18:23Speaker 2: the surrogate mother is carrying this child. For the couple,
- 18:27Speaker 2: the baby is born. The parent's name appears on the
- 18:33Speaker 2: birth certificate because that's what the contract says. And Texas
- 18:37Speaker 2: was following California law in allowing the parent's name, mandating
- 18:44Speaker 2: the parent's name be put on the contract. Okay, fair enough.
- 18:46Speaker 2: We're on the birth certificate. That's easy. That's been the
- 18:49Speaker 2: world of surrogacy since I started this. My first contract, 1980,
- 18:52Speaker 2: if you can believe that. All right, so real simple.
- 18:55Speaker 2: Contract says intended parents are the parents of the child,
- 18:59Speaker 2: no matter whether it's his sperm, her egg, donor, doesn't matter.
- 19:04Speaker 2: Surrogate mother connected, not connected biologically, doesn't matter. Okay, so
- 19:08Speaker 2: here's what happens. There is an abortion clause in the
- 19:12Speaker 2: contract in which if the child is going to be
- 19:15Speaker 2: born anomalous, the surrogate mother will agree to abort the
- 19:19Speaker 2: child if the parents ask for it. And this kid
- 19:22Speaker 2: we're talking about was born with some severe heart problems.
- 19:27Speaker 2: I mean, life-threatening heart problems with, if not treated, going
- 19:32Speaker 2: to die immediately. And we'll need a bunch of surgeries
- 19:35Speaker 2: to survive. And even then, there are probably complications for
- 19:38Speaker 2: the rest of this child's life. So what the parents
- 19:41Speaker 2: did is ask for an abortion. They said, all right,
- 19:44Speaker 2: we don't want this child. And she said, no, I'm
- 19:47Speaker 2: going to have... the baby. And she goes to Texas
- 19:52Speaker 2: to have the baby. Because the way Texas views abortion
- 19:57Speaker 2: and parentage is very different than what California does. So
- 20:02Speaker 2: now the baby is born. I'm sorry, Neil?
- 20:04Speaker 3: Hey, Bill, a listener had a question. Could that be
- 20:07Speaker 3: considered since she went to another state?
- 20:09Speaker 2: That can.
- 20:11Speaker 3: That's not considered kidnapping?
- 20:13Speaker 2: No, no, that's not kidnapping. Because if you go to
- 20:17Speaker 2: another state and you happen to have a baby in
- 20:19Speaker 2: your stomach, you know, in your uterus, no. There's no
- 20:22Speaker 2: clause that says she has to stay in? Oh, yeah,
- 20:25Speaker 2: there are plenty of clauses that say you have to
- 20:26Speaker 2: stay in the state or the baby has to be born. Yeah, yeah,
- 20:29Speaker 2: it's a breach. But does that mean that you're any
- 20:31Speaker 2: less the parent of the child? No, you have a breach. Now,
- 20:34Speaker 2: here's the problem in this case. She did not have
- 20:38Speaker 2: the abortion. And the parents who now are the legal
- 20:42Speaker 2: parents are saying, we're the parents. You know, that's our kid.
- 20:47Speaker 2: We want our kid. She is saying, since you asked
- 20:51Speaker 2: for an abortion, you breached the contract. You didn't want
- 20:56Speaker 2: this kid. And so I'm keeping the child and I
- 21:00Speaker 2: want custody. It's a custody battle right now, not a
- 21:03Speaker 2: parentage battle. And that's what the Texas courts now have
- 21:08Speaker 2: to determine. And that is, did the couple breach the
- 21:11Speaker 2: contract by asking for an abortion and then changing their
- 21:16Speaker 2: mind and want the baby? And now the couple is saying,
- 21:20Speaker 2: it's our kid. We love the baby. It's terrific. And
- 21:23Speaker 2: she's saying, but you wanted this child aborted. And they're
- 21:26Speaker 2: sort of ignoring that. That's sort of being swept under
- 21:29Speaker 2: the table, under the carpet. And they're saying, it's our child.
- 21:32Speaker 2: We love the child. We're the parents. And now the
- 21:35Speaker 2: whole issue is, did their decision to abort the baby
- 21:40Speaker 2: she refuses to abort, is that determinative as to where
- 21:46Speaker 2: this baby goes? That's what Texas is looking at. Now,
- 21:49Speaker 2: as I said, this is a case of first impression.
- 21:52Speaker 2: That is what that means is the court have never
- 21:56Speaker 2: heard these facts before and will make a decision and
- 22:00Speaker 2: it will probably go on appeal. This is not one
- 22:02Speaker 2: of those things that you don't appeal. When I first
- 22:05Speaker 2: went to court to have parents named the parents of
- 22:09Speaker 2: a child and asked the California courts to determine that
- 22:13Speaker 2: the contract be upheld and that the child's name appear
- 22:19Speaker 2: on the birth certificate as the child or the parent's name,
- 22:22Speaker 2: the judge, it happened to end up being a friend
- 22:26Speaker 2: of mine, looked at me and saying, Bill, this is
- 22:29Speaker 2: beyond my pay grade. I'm going to deny it. You
- 22:32Speaker 2: take it up on appeal. The appeals courts have to
- 22:35Speaker 2: deal with this. And that's exactly what happened. And we won.
- 22:39Speaker 2: We won on appeal. And California is probably the most
- 22:43Speaker 2: pro-surrogacy state in the union. But even then, even in California,
- 22:49Speaker 2: wait a minute, is this a breach? Is it a
- 22:53Speaker 2: material breach to the point where the contract is gone?
- 22:56Speaker 2: And then the parents have the ability to go in
- 22:59Speaker 2: notwithstanding a contract. We're still arguing parentage. And the surrogate
- 23:05Speaker 2: mother can say no because the definition of surrogacy is
- 23:10Speaker 2: the implantation of an embryo or artificial insemination pursuant to
- 23:17Speaker 2: a contract. And if you argue there is no contract
- 23:20Speaker 2: because you asked for an abortion or there is no contract,
- 23:23Speaker 2: do they still become parents? Well, California, probably yes. Texas, no. Man,
- 23:31Speaker 2: who knows? Who knows? Fascinating case. The kid even has
- 23:38Speaker 2: different names. Surrogate mother is calling it one name. The
- 23:42Speaker 2: parents are calling it another name. Parents are now the
- 23:45Speaker 2: parents legally. They have custody. She's asking for conservatorship. She's
- 23:50Speaker 2: asking for custody. They have legal definition of parentage. She
- 23:54Speaker 2: is saying it doesn't matter who the parent is. I
- 23:56Speaker 2: want this kid because you, the parents, wanted to abort
- 23:59Speaker 2: the kid. That changes everything. And they're saying no. Wow.
- 24:03Speaker 2: What a case. What a case. Okay. Let's do this.
- 24:09Speaker 2: Wild horses. What's that phrase about wild horses? Wild horses
- 24:15Speaker 2: couldn't tear us apart. I'm sorry?
- 24:18Speaker 4: Couldn't carry you away?
- 24:19Speaker 2: Is that it?
- 24:21Speaker 1: Not sure.
- 24:23Speaker 2: Okay. In France, wild horses can still be eaten. I don't.
- 24:29Speaker 2: know the exact phrase. You've been listening to The Bill
- 24:32Speaker 2: Handel Show. Catch my show Monday through Friday, 6 a.m.
- 24:35Speaker 2: to 9 a.m. and anytime on demand on the iHeartRadio app.