Crystal Kelley got paid $22,000 to have a baby. But that wasn’t the only offer the 29-year-old Connecticut mother of two received. After an utrasound at 21-weeks revealed significant medical issues, the parents offered her $10,000 more if she agreed to an abortion.

The gross immorality of that second offer tells us that there is a lot wrong with the first arrangement. It is intolerable that our society continues to put up with an unregulated, free market in hiring cash-starved women to make babies. 

The couple, which had two other children, "were very attentive," Kelley told NBC Connecticut. "They wanted to be involved in the pregnancy. [The biological mother] said she really felt like she was living through me in this pregnancy and she wished she could experience it.”

But after the tests revealed complex heart problems, a cleft lift and palate and other issues, the would-be parents decided that the pregancy should be terminated. Kelley refused, even after the money was offered after she was told the parents would no longer adopt the baby.

Then things went from ethically bad to ethically despicable. According to a CNN report, Crystal Kelley then got a letter from an attorney named Douglas Fishman reminding her that her surrogacy contract required her to get an abortion in the case “of severe fetus abnormality.” The lawyer told her that if she did not promptly get an abortion the no-longer-wannabe-parents would sue her to get back the money they’d paid along with the money they’d spent on Crystal’s medical bills and legal fees.

This crummy story goes on and on (for those who are curious, Kelley did eventually give birth and was able to find another couple to adopt the child), but there is enough on the ethical plate to see that there is plenty wrong with commercial surrogacy if a woman can be bribed or bullied into an abortion.

Let’s do the low hanging ethical fruit first.

No one can contract with a woman to have an abortion. Under any circumstances. For any reason. Never. A woman controls her body and no one can make her do anything she does not want to do in terms of medical intervention with her body no matter what she has said before, signed or promised. The lawyer who tried to coerce and threaten Crystal Kelley to have an abortion should be subject to loss of his license to practice law. Any surrogate agency which conveyed an offer of money to encourage an abortion is guilty of at best bribery and an attempt to crassly manipulate a vulnerable woman. And any surrogacy agency that sticks abortion language into its contracts is guilty of gross misconduct.

Now let’s go for the broader moral lessons evident from this horrific tale.

Surrogacy for money is about money -- not love, or help, or altruism or doing good. Money is most attractive to those who need it most. Young single mothers with kids to feed and bills to pay and the rent in arrears are not likely to read the small print. If we are going to put up with markets in wombs, then the least we can do is mandate by law that the potential surrogate has her own lawyer that she picks but that is paid for by the couple who want to rent her womb.

In addition, we need legislation that makes it absolutely clear that if you hire a surrogate you will legally be bound to accept and raise any child that results. Would-be parents who use surrogates must understand that if a fetus is found to have problems, it is their responsibility, not the surrogate’s, to resolve them. If you enter the genetic lottery via surrogacy, you have to live with the consequences: that is the only way to insure the interests of children made via surrogacy are protected.

Lastly, we need tighter control over those in the commercial surrogacy broker business. If Crystal Kelley’s story is any indication, there are a lot of brokers out there who are far more interested in making an easy dollar then protecting the women whose wombs they offer for sale or the children who may result from surrogacy arrangements.

Technology has given us many new and valuable ways to make babies. The free market – complete with its shady middlemen and lawyers -- is not up to the task of deciding how best to use that technology.

Arthur Caplan, Ph.D., is the head of the Division of Medical Ethics at NYU Langone Medical Center.

When a Vernon woman was hired to be a surrogate in 2011, she never expected that the decision would lead to a more agonizing decision about the fate of a little girl, a battle in the courts and a move out of state so she had the power to make choices about the child's welfare.

Crystal Kelley said the couple she was carrying the child for asked her to get an abortion when tests showed severe problems, and even offered her $10,000 to terminate the pregnancy, but Kelley refused and gave birth to the little girl last summer.

Kelley met the couple from New York in mid-2011 at a playground near her Vernon home. They discussed plans about providing a good home for their children and Kelley said they immediately wanted Kelley to be their surrogate.

“They were very attentive. They wanted to be involved in the pregnancy. She said she really felt like she was living through me in this pregnancy and she wished she could experience it,” Kelly said.

Kelley, who has two daughters of her own and also had two miscarriages, said she wanted to go ahead with the pregnancy because she understood the heartbreak of not having a child when you’re expecting one.

"They were fantastic for a long time,” Kelley said. “They gave me the impression that they definitely cared about their children very much. They were very involved in their kids’ lives.”

Around five months into the pregnancy, doctors at Hartford Hospital determined the baby had several medical problems and the couple offered Kelley $10,000 to terminate the pregnancy.

“They didn't believe it was fair to bring a child into the world that would only know pain and suffering,” said Kelley.  “If I don’t have support of these people. What am I going to do with a baby? I didn’t get into this to have a baby. I can't deny that I did say, if you give me $15,000, I'll think about doing it.”

She dismissed the thought when she got home from the hospital.

Then, several lawsuits were filed and Kelley moved to Michigan, a state that let her have full control over the child’s rights.

On June 25, 2012, Kelley gave birth to a girl who she referred to for this article as “Baby S" and found a couple from the area that has the financial means to take care of the baby

Doctors said that if the child makes it through the first five years of her life, she has a great chance of making it to adulthood.

“I had a very hard time giving her up for adoption. I really wanted to keep her,” Kelley said.

Kelley said she still sees Baby S, who’s now 9 months old, about once a month.