A High-Tech Orphan

With her curly hair and her ready smile, JayCee Buzzanca seems like a perfectly normal, perfectly charming toddler.

But in at least one respect, she is a very unusual child. Jaycee is an amazing example of the wonders of modern fertility methods. Five people had a hand in her conception and birth.

But there's a catch to this heartwarming story of scientific ingenuity. As so often happens in complex joint ventures, the people involved ended up arguing over who did what, and who should get the credit. The upshot: JayCee is involved in a convoluted custody struggle. She was a high-tech orphan.

Who should take care of her? The couple who provided her genetic material? The woman who carried her to term? The woman who desperately wanted her and who takes care of her, but has no genetic relation to her? The man who signed a contract allowing the embryo to be implanted?

After two years of anger, anxiety, and argument, questions remain. The case illustrates the complexities involved in the burgeoning world of fertility science, where new techniques have rendered old legal and ethical assumptions obsolete.

48 Hours first met Jaycee in 1999, when she was 3, but her story really began in 1989, when John and Luanne Buzzanca decided to have a child. After five frustrating years without success, during which they tried numerous fertility treatments, the Buzzancas finally succeeded. An embryo, created in a laboratory using sperm and an egg from anonymous donors, was implanted in a surrogate, who had agreed to carry the baby to term.

Then things began unraveling. In 1995, a month before baby JayCee was born, John filed for divorce. When Luanne asked him for child support, he refused, saying that he was not the father.

While agreeing that he was not the biological father, Luanne and her lawyer said that John had signed the contract consenting to implant the embryo in the surrogate. This, they argued, made him the legal father, and therefore responsible for child support. John admitted that he had signed the contract, but said he had done so only to appease a desperate Luanne, who had begged him to help her have a child before he left her.

In the meantime, the surrogate, a woman named Pamela Snell, decided to sue Luanne for custody of JayCee. Snell said that she had agreed to be a surrogate with the understanding that the baby she bore would live in a stable, two-parent home. She claimed that Luanne had kept news of her divorce a secret until after Jaycee was born. Snell felt betrayed, and believed that carrying Jaycee to term made her the girl's rightful mother.

In September, 1997, a judge ruled that John was not legally Jaycee's father and did not have to pay support. He also ruled that Luanne was not the legal mother. Luanne appealed.

Throughout this process, Luanne had custody of JayCee, and took care of her from day to day. She chose not to adopt Jaycee because that step would be an admission legally anyway, that Jaycee was not her child in the first place (you can't adopt your own child). That concession would end her claim to child support from John.

Then the case got even more complicated. Erin Davidson, the woman who donated the egg that became Jaycee, came forward, saying that the egg had been used without her permission, in fact against her wishes, by an unscrupulous, or at any rate disorganized, fertility clinic.

Then the sperm donor and his wife came forward, also claiming that his genetic material had been used without permission. A few months later, they reversed themselves, saying that in fact they had inadvertently agreed to donate their sperm. They said that they had signed the permission form without giving it proper thought. Neither donor sued or asked for custody, but their appearance muddied the legal and ethical waters even further.

In 1999, a state appeals court ruled in favor of Luanne, giving her custody of Jaycee, and decided that John, as the girl's legal father, was obligated to pay child support, almost $400 a month.

So, three years after being born, JayCee finally had a legal parent.

Since this program was first aired, John retained a second lawyer to appeal the case but his appeal has been rejected. He remains JayCee's legal father and will be making child support payments to her mother for another 13 years.

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