The surrogate triplets born in Erie nearly a year ago now have two mothers.

One is the egg donor. The other is the womb donor.

An Ohio judge decided last week that the egg donor has a mother-child relationship with the triplets. Three months earlier, in another genetic-donation case, Pennsylvania Superior Court ruled that a sperm donor must pay child support. The two cases raise questions about the rights and responsibilities of people who buy and sell genetic material.

"It certainly has a fear factor associated with it," said Steve Litz, a lawyer and director of Surrogate Mothers Inc., the Indiana agency that arranged for the triplets.

The fear for sellers of eggs and sperm is that someone will track them down for child support. The fear for buyers of eggs and sperm is that a seller will demand rights to the child.

That's what happened in the triplets' case, but it was with the aid and consent of the man who bought the eggs, provided the sperm, paid for the womb, and is the father of the boys.

He is James Flynn, a 63-year-old Cleveland man who paid tens of thousands of dollars for the surrogate birth of the triplets but then neglected to get the legal papers necessary to take the boys home from the hospital.

When Flynn hadn't visited his newborns for five days straight, the womb donor, Danielle Bimber, took them from the hospital. An Erie judge declared in April that she is the babies' legal mother.

Shortly after that, the egg donor, Jennifer Michelle Rice, a 23-year-old Arlington, Texas, resident, asked an Akron judge to declare her the mother.

The judge, John P. Quinn, decided that Rice and Flynn have parent-child relationships with the triplets. He declined to decide who has parental rights, saying that's up to Erie Common Pleas Judge Shad Connelly.

Bimber hopes Connelly will announce before Nov. 19, when the boys turn 1, whether she or Flynn will have primary physical custody of the boys.

Because her lawyer, Joseph Martone, of Erie, anticipated that the Ohio judge might declare Rice a mother, he asked Connelly to terminate her parental rights. A hearing is scheduled for Dec. 7 on that.

Before donating, Rice signed a contract giving up any rights to babies born from her eggs, Litz said. She showed no interest in them during Bimber's pregnancy. She did not go to the hospital during the six days they remained in care after their slightly premature birth. And during the past year, in which Bimber has had primary physical custody, Rice has not visited the children at Bimber's home.

It's not clear whether she saw them during times when the babies visited Flynn and his fiancee, Eileen Donich, at their home outside Cleveland. Flynn testified that Rice provided the names that he calls the boys -- names that are different from those that Bimber uses.

Litz said if Rice wants to be the boys' mother, then she has obligations. He suggested Bimber seek child support from Rice. "Then we'd see how quickly she would give up her rights," he said.

A judge's decision that a donor has a parent-child relationship should raise concern with anyone who sells or uses genetic material, said medical ethicist Arthur Caplan, chair of the department of medical ethics at the University of Pennsylvania medical school.

"The whole reproductive technology area is like the wild, wild West. There is no sheriff, no posse. You can get away with whatever you can get away with," he said.

The Erie case, and the case the Pennsylvania Superior Court decided in July, are good examples, he said. In the Superior Court case, a man donated sperm to a woman who told him he'd have no responsibility for the child. But then he was ordered to pay child support for what turned out to be twins. The judges ruled invalid the agreement between the two adults depriving the children of their right to support.

Lawrence Kalikow, a lawyer from Warminster who handles surrogacy contracts, said most people involved in egg and sperm buying and selling shouldn't worry about the recent Ohio and Pennsylvania decisions because in most cases donors are anonymous.

But Caplan said sperm and egg banks keep the records, and they could be ordered to turn over names.

Judges should not be making law in this area, he said. Lawmakers should legislate the rights and responsibilities of the buyers and sellers of genetic material.