Life – Page 18 – Family Council

Companies Still Offering Women in Arkansas $50,000+ to be Surrogates

Apr 30, 2024Jerry CoxBioethics, SurrogacyCommercial Surrogacy, Life, Sanctity of Human Life

Companies are still 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 give birth to children for them as surrogates. Agencies often pay women thousands of dollars to act as surrogates.

For example, the company US Surrogacy has placed ads on Craigslist saying women in Arkansas can make $50,000 – $60,000 as commercial surrogates.

As we and others have said for years, commercial surrogacy exploits women and children. It treats babies like products that can be bought and sold, and it treats women like commodities.

In fact, many nations prohibit commercial surrogacy, because it is linked to the exploitation of women and children. However, commercial surrogacy laws in the U.S. tend to be lax.

In California, surrogate Brittney Pearson’s story shows some of the problems associated with surrogacy.

After Pearson was diagnosed with an aggressive form of cancer, 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.

Stories like this one underscore why Family Council has opposed commercial surrogacy in Arkansas.

In 2017 we supported a bill to prohibit commercial surrogacy in Arkansas. Unfortunately, the measure never came up for a vote.

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.

Mary Rose Doe Reminds Us of the Horrors of Unrestricted Abortion on Demand

Apr 29, 2024Jerry CoxAbortionAbortion, Life, Pro-life, Sanctity of Human Life

On April 28, 1983, an eight-year-old boy playing by his yard near Little Rock’s Cantrell Road discovered baby Mary Rose Doe lying dead in a drainage ditch.

Mary was 16 inches long and weighed five pounds. She was seven months gestation, with a full head of auburn hair, brown eyes, and ivory skin.

The State Medical Examiner’s autopsy determined Mary asphyxiated in the womb as a result of a legal abortion.

Mary’s lifeless body was delivered and — for reasons nobody has ever been able to determine — she was abandoned in a drainage ditch. She probably had been dead only a few hours when her body was found.

The State Medical Examiner described Mary as “a perfect little bud that was clipped before she could blossom.”

Mary’s death serves as a grisly reminder of the horrors of unrestricted abortion on demand.

In 1983 abortion was legal and largely unregulated in Arkansas.

In the spring of that year, the state legislature passed Act 509 instituting some of Arkansas’ first meaningful restrictions on abortion facilities. However, those regulations did not take effect for many months. None of them was in place when Baby Mary Rose Doe was aborted—and then abandoned—in Little Rock.

Abortions like the one that took Mary Rose Doe’s life are one reason Arkansas began enacting pro-life laws such as health and safety standards for abortionists and abortion facilities.

In May of 1983, North Pulaski Pro-Life assumed guardianship of Mary’s remains, and the group made arrangements for her burial.

North Pulaski Pro-Life’s Treasurer and his wife provided Mary with a dress that had belonged to their daughters.

North Little Rock Funeral Home gave her a small coffin. The Catholic Diocese of Little Rock provided her with a grave plot in Little Rock’s Calvary Cemetery.

And North Pulaski Pro-Life gave her a name: Mary Rose Doe.

On May 16, 1983—less than three weeks after her body was found—some 100 people attended a graveside service for Mary at Calvary Cemetery in Little Rock. According to a news report at the time, the group sang “Amazing Grace” and heard from two ministers—one a Church of Christ preacher and the other a Catholic priest—who both called for an end to abortion.

White linen, rosebuds, and daisies covered Mary’s casket. A small marker was placed on her grave—a memorial to Mary Rose Doe and the thousands of other unborn children aborted in Arkansas.

Today, abortion in Arkansas is generally prohibited except to save the life of the mother. Mary’s body rests in a quiet corner of Calvary Cemetery near the intersection of South Woodrow and Asher Avenue in Little Rock. Her grave lies just a short drive across town from the place her body was discovered 41 years ago.

Mary’s story is still relevant. Right now an effort is underway in Arkansas to write abortion into the state constitution; this would threaten to nullify even basic health and safety standards for abortionists and abortion facilities. Arkansas has been down that road before. Mary Rose Doe’s brief life and tragic death remind us exactly what unrestricted abortion on demand looks like.

Articles appearing on this website are written with the aid of Family Council’s researchers and writers. Information in this article was adapted from Family Council’s update letter dated April of 2020 and from news articles published in 1983.

Arkansas Legislature Votes for $2M in Grants to Pregnancy Centers, Supporting Maternal Wellness

Apr 26, 2024Jerry CoxAbortionAbortion, Arkansas Legislature, Life, Pro-life, Sanctity of Human Life

On Thursday the Arkansas House of Representatives passed S.B. 64 by Sen. John Payton (R – Wilburn) providing $2 million in state grant funding for pregnancy help organizations. The bill previously passed the Arkansas Senate.

The funding will provide grants to pregnancy resource centers, maternity homes, adoption agencies, and other organizations that promote infant and maternal health and provide material support to women with unplanned pregnancies.

In 2022 Family Council worked with the legislature and the governor to secure $1 million for pregnancy centers. This funding provided grants to more than 20 pregnancy help organizations.

Last year we worked with lawmakers to renew this funding. This grant money has gone to more than two dozen good organizations across the state that give women and families real assistance when faced with an unplanned pregnancy.

S.B. 64 would make improvements to the grant program. It would increase state funding from $1 million per year to $2 million. This would put Arkansas’ funding on parr with other states.

The bill also clarifies that “pregnancy help organizations” include nonprofit organizations that promote infant and maternal wellness and reduce infant and maternal mortality by:

Providing nutritional information and/or nutritional counseling;
Providing prenatal vitamins;
Providing a list of prenatal medical care options;
Providing social, emotional, and/or material support; or
Providing referrals for WIC and community-based nutritional services, including but not limited to food banks, food pantries, and food distribution centers.

The measure includes language preventing state funds from going to abortionists and their affiliates.

The Arkansas Legislature passed S.B. 64 with virtually no opposition. We appreciate the the legislators who have supported this good legislation. Below is a breakdown of how each state representative voted on the measure.