Agencies Offer Women in Arkansas $60,000+ to Bear Children as Commercial Surrogates

Bioethics, Surrogacy,

Agencies are offering women in Arkansas tens of thousands of dollars to bear children as commercial surrogates.

Commercial surrogacy agencies work with individuals and couples who pay women to be artificially inseminated and bear children for them as surrogates.

The agency American Surrogacy advertises that women in Arkansas can make more than $60,000 as commercial surrogates. Other companies on Craigslist offer commercial surrogates upwards of $55,000 to $75,000.

The reality is that commercial surrogacy uses this kind of money to exploit women and children.

In California, surrogate Brittney Pearson recently made headlines after she was diagnosed with an aggressive form of cancer. Because the cancer treatment could harm the unborn baby she was carrying, doctors recommended inducing labor early and caring for the baby in the NICU while she started chemo. However, that isn’t what the same-sex couple paying Brittney Pearson as their commercial surrogate wanted.

Even though she was 24 weeks pregnant, and the baby might have been able to survive outside the womb, the men wanted Brittney to have an abortion. If the baby were born alive, the men asked that no life-saving measures be taken for the baby.

With her cancer having spread to her liver, Pearson found a hospital to induce birth. The child died shortly after being born on Father’s Day, June 18.

All of this was made possible by state laws that facilitate commercial surrogacy.

Family Council has lobbied for legislation that would prohibit commercial surrogacy in Arkansas.

In 2017 then-Rep. Greg Leding sponsored a bill prohibiting commercial surrogacy in Arkansas. Unfortunately, the bill never came up for a vote.

Being pro-life means believing that innocent human life is sacred at every stage of development from conception until natural death.

Commercial surrogacy violates the sanctity and dignity of human life, because it treats women like commodities, and it treats unborn children like property that can be manufactured, bought, sold, or destroyed at will.

To put it simply: People aren’t products.

Articles appearing on this website are written with the aid of Family Council’s researchers and writers.

READ MORE

Marijuana Legalization Tied to Increased Use Among Young Adults Who Don’t Attend College

Marijuana

Research shows that marijuana legalization leads to increased use among young adults who do not attend college.

Researchers from Oregon State University analyzed marijuana use among young adults ages 18-23.

Their findings — which were published recently in the American Journal of Preventive Medicine — revealed that marijuana legalizations was tied to higher use among young adults who were not enrolled in college.

The findings are significant, because young adults who use marijuana face serious health risks.

For example, an NIH study published this year found young men who use marijuana heavily are at an increased risk of developing schizophrenia. As many as 30% of schizophrenia cases among men between the ages 21 and 30 could have been prevented by not using marijuana.

A study published in the Canadian Medical Association Journal found adults under age 45 who frequently use marijuana are roughly twice as likely to suffer from a heart attack as adults who do not use marijuana.

And a 2021 report published in the Journal of the American Medical Association found self-harm rates rose 46% among men ages 21 to 39 in states where commercial marijuana sales were legalized.

All of this underscores what we have said for years: Marijuana may be many things, but “harmless” simply is not one of them.

Articles appearing on this website are written with the aid of Family Council’s researchers and writers.

READ MORE

Saline County Quorum Court Votes to Put County Judge Over Library

Library,

The Saline County Quorum Court voted on Monday to give County Judge Matt Brumley authority over the county library.

The Arkansas Democrat-Gazette writes that Monday’s measure prevents the county library board from hiring or firing library employees or regulating their salaries. The measure also subjects the library to an annual audit, and it effectively places the quorum court in charge of the library’s budget.

The move in Saline County comes after extensive controversy over the placement of inappropriate children’s books in the library’s catalog.

Family Council has heard repeatedly from people who are deeply troubled by obscene and inappropriate children’s books that some librarians have placed on the shelves of their local libraries.

For example, the Jonesboro public library has been at the center of multiple controversies over its decision to place books with sexually-explicit images in its children’s section and for failing to adopt a policy that separates sexual material from children’s content.

The library in Jonesboro went so far as to post on Facebook that it isn’t the library’s responsibility to protect kids from obscenity.

Following the controversy in Jonesboro, voters opted to cut the library’s millage in half last November.

Other public libraries in Arkansas have included graphic children’s books in their catalogs and failed to separate sexual material from children’s material as well.

Public libraries are supposed to be for everyone.

Families should be able to take their children to the library without worrying what their children might see.

Taxpayers should not be forced to subsidize graphic novels that depict explicit images of minors engaged in sexual acts.

Hopefully, the Saline County Quorum Court’s vote this week will help ensure that library material in their community is appropriate for all ages.

Articles appearing on this website are written with the aid of Family Council’s researchers and writers.

READ MORE