An eastern Iowa couple is fighting in the Iowa Supreme Court over who should be the parents of a baby they asked a surrogate to carry.

Paul and Chantele Montover of Cedar Rapids paid a surrogate $13,000. The surrogate carried and gave birth to a baby Paul's sperm and a donor egg created. But the surrogate decided she wanted to keep the little girl.

A judge ruled the baby belonged with the Montover's, and not the surrogate. The surrogate is appealing to the Iowa Supreme Court.

"Is Iowa ready to go down a path, an irrevocable path, to say we can buy and sell children? This is worse than selling children. It's the manufacture in advance of conception for the purpose of selling the child," Harold Cassidy, the surrogate's lawyer, said.

"On the one hand, we would all agree you can't sell children, that's kind of an extreme hypothetical. On the other hand, we would all agree you can sell corn, the commodification rule. What we've got here is in between," Iowa Supreme Court Justice Brent Appel said.

The surrogate's lawyer argues that she is the mother since she carried and gave birth to the child. But the Montover's lawyer says it could cause future problems to rule that a relationship constitutes rights to the child.

"It would be dangerous to say somehow just relationship can get you in the door," Philip De Koster, the Montovers' attorney, said.

Iowa law bars buying or selling of people, but specifically says that doesn't apply to surrogacy.