Pennsylvania is one of 19 states without a law governing surrogacy, but the General Assembly should visit that issue soon.

A case that could be headed to appeals courts, because of a change of heart by the surrogate mother, magnifies the state's troubling oversight in heretofore failing to pass a law setting guidelines for surrogacy contracts.

Thirty-one other states have shown themselves to be more forward-thinking, based on their actions addressing surrogacy.

In the Pennsylvania case in question, the direction of triplets' futures is at stake.

While Erie County Judge Shad Connelly's decision has set a precedent for this state in the one set of circumstances upon which he was asked to rule, the judge himself, in handing down his ruling, said he hoped "that the legislature will address surrogacy matters . . . to prevent cases like this one from appearing before the courts without statutory guidance."

The case in which Connelly ruled involves a surrogate mother who gave birth to the triplets but changed her mind about giving up the babies because of what she perceived as questionable conduct by the biological father and his fiancee after the babies were born.

Connelly invalidated the contract that had been drawn up under the surrogacy arrangement because it failed to name a legal mother for the triplets; the judge said the biological father's fiancee could not be considered a legal mother because she was not married to the biological father.

The woman who donated her eggs did not want to be involved in the children's lives after her donation.

The hospital in which the children were born said the biological father and his fiancee failed to provide the hospital with a court order allowing them to take the infants home, so the hospital had no choice but to allow the surrogate mother to have custody of them.

Meanwhile, Connelly criticized the father for failing to name the children and for not visiting them regularly after they were born on Nov. 19.

While the court's decision doesn't seem out of order, based on the facts that have been made public to date, the presence of statutory guidance could have made a settlement of the case clear.

Because of the lack of such official guidance, the possibility of an appeal of Connelly's ruling currently looms, and thus the direction of the triplets' futures remains uncertain.

The custodial tug-of-war brought about via an appeal could be traumatic for the children if, after several years of legal haggling, a change of custody were to be ordered.

With 31 states having recognized the need for laws on surrogacy, it's puzzling why the issue has escaped notice in Pennsylvania.

But maybe that oversight isn't such a mystery after all.

The surrogacy issue must be well down the list of priorities of the General Assembly, since state lawmakers, mired in partisanship more than legislative production, can't even carry out their routine obligations like budget approval expeditiously.

However, now they might have no choice but to address the issue.

- J.R.K.