She Was Imprisoned for Selling Her Baby. Now Delaware Wants to Make It Legal.
7th April 2026
On Sept. 3, 2011, in the parking lot of the Delaware Park Racetrack, a woman named Bridget Wismer handed her newborn son to a man named John Gavaghan in exchange for $15,000 in cash and a money order.
Gavaghan had never met Wismer before the pregnancy and had no genetic connection to the child, but he listed himself as the biological father on the birth certificate anyway. Wismer’s grandmother tipped off police.
Both were arrested and indicted by a grand jury on charges of dealing in children. Wismer eventually pleaded to a lesser charge and was sentenced to five years in prison.
What Wismer did in that parking lot is now being legalized across the country, and Delaware is one of the states leading the charge.
Delaware’s Senate Bill 250, introduced on March 5, is the latest in a growing wave of state legislation built on the 2017 Uniform Parentage Act, which expands surrogacy frameworks to include paid “genetic surrogacy.”