PITTSBURGH - The state's family laws dictate how long couples can be separated before they are divorced, what names can appear on an adopted child's birth certificate and how old someone must be to get married.

But on the issue of child surrogacy, the state doesn't get involved, leaving judges to interpret how Pennsylvania family law might apply to disputes in surrogacy cases. That's what happened last month in Erie County, where a judge gave a surrogate mother custody of three babies.

Though the judge appealed to the Legislature to take a stand, surrogacy advocates counsel a hands-off approach.

"If it's not broken, don't fix it," said Lawrence Kalikow, a suburban Philadelphia lawyer who has dealt with surrogacy cases for 12 years and whose 8-year-old son was born using a surrogate. The Erie case is unique and not representative of the thousands of surrogacy arrangements that work each year, he said.

Last month, Erie County Judge Shad Connelly awarded custody to surrogate Danielle Bimber, 29, of Corry. Through Surrogate Mothers Inc. of Monrovia, Ind., Bimber agreed to a surrogacy arrangement with a man identified in court records as J.F. She was implanted with donated eggs fertilized with his sperm and gave birth to triplets Nov. 19.

But when J.F. and his fiance didn't come to the hospital to take the babies home, Bimber took them and successfully sought custody. J.F. has appealed.

About 22,000 babies have been born through surrogacy in the United States since the mid-1970s, based on feedback from clinics, families and independent arrangements, said Shirley Zager, of Gurnee, Ill., who has worked with the Organization of Parents Through Surrogacy and started her own agency, Parenting Partners Inc. She has overseen the arrangement of ten successful surrogacies, and said six more babies are on the way.

There are no federal, state or private agencies that track surrogate births.

Zager, whose daughter was born in 1987 through the use of a surrogate, said knowledgeable attorneys and agencies have initiated surrogacy arrangements that work in Pennsylvania and other states without laws and there's no need to legislate the process.

"What you have is a case that just didn't go right," Zager said.

In his ruling, Connelly appealed to state lawmakers for guidance.

"It is additionally the court's hope that the Legislature will address surrogacy matters in Pennsylvania to prevent cases like this one from appearing before the courts without statutory guidance," Connelly said.

Steve Litz, director of Surrogate Mothers Inc., said he has arranged many surrogacy cases over 20 years and nothing like this has ever happened. He said he hasn't spoken to his client, J.F., for weeks.

"There's no question that this is not a failed surrogacy. It's failed parenting," Litz said. "While I have no problem with legislatures addressing surrogacy, they can't and they shouldn't do it through knee-jerk opinions that ask the legislature to get involved."

Surrogacy advocates say the judge's decision brings back memories of New Jersey's Baby M case, after which lawmakers across the country hastily moved to regulate or outlaw surrogacy. The surrogate mother in the case refused to give up the child; the New Jersey Supreme Court later awarded custody to the child's biological father, with visitation rights to the surrogate mother.

About 19 states passed laws, though some have been challenged in court and eventually changed, or remain open to interpretation. They laws vary from state to state. In West Virginia, state law doesn't regulate surrogacy but does recognize it, and surrogacy is legal in Washington state as long as the surrogate is only compensated for medical expenses. In Michigan, a 1998 law prohibited paid surrogacy and said surrogacy contracts were "contrary to public policy and void."

In New Jersey, as a result of the Baby M case, surrogacy contracts were made illegal.

The National Conference of Commissioners on Uniform State Laws, a Chicago group that helps legislatures draft bills, has offered two acts to give guidance to states considering surrogacy, said John McCabe, the group's legal counsel. Only North Dakota and Virginia adopted the acts.

The earliest act, written in 1988 after the Baby M case, provided language to create a procedure to allow surrogacy and surrogacy contracts to be enforced.

"To a degree, surrogacy is an adjunct to adoption," McCabe said. "What you're doing here is creating an adoption of a child who has not yet been conceived."

In most surrogacy cases, the intended parents are married and seek a court order before the baby's birth declaring them the parents. This wasn't true in the Erie case.

"It doesn't sound like the surrogate got pregnant with the intent of having these babies for herself. So it's very unfortunate and (the judge's order) really goes against the general legal picture," said Sherrie Smith, program administrator of the Center for Surrogate Parenting and Egg Donation Inc. Her organization provides surrogacy information and helps arrange births, among them the highly publicized births last year of television personality Joan Lunden's twins through a surrogate.

"Pennsylvania doesn't have a law and that's the danger. In a state where there's no law, we rely on judges," said Smith, from the center's Annapolis, Md., office.

Joseph Martone, Bimber's attorney, said he doesn't believe Connelly's decision sets a precedent in Pennsylvania because of the extraordinary circumstances of the case.

"This situation is just so unique that legislation could not always foresee these types of situations," Martone said. He said Bimber won't speak publicly about the case until the custody issues are resolved.

Jim Richardson, an attorney representing J.F., wouldn't comment on the facts of the case because of the pending appeal. Richardson, who has specialized in family law cases for 25 years, said this is the first surrogacy that he's handled that has had to go to litigation for enforcement.

"I think it would be nice for all individuals to know exactly what the laws and the guidelines were," Richardson said.