Florida Lawmakers Add Surrogacy Ban to Foreign Interference Measure

Bioethics, Surrogacy,

Last week, Florida lawmakers amended a foreign interference bill to prohibit commercial surrogacy contracts with citizens of certain countries.

In commercial surrogacy, corporate agencies hire women to carry children for paying customers — some of whom may be foreign nationals.

Florida’s H.B. 905 is intended to stop China, Russia, Iran, North Korea, Cuba, Venezuela, and Syria from interfering in business or politics in the Sunshine State. The measure reportedly would prevent state and local governments from contracting with individuals and businesses closely associated with those countries when it comes to matters like critical infrastructure or information technology.

On March 3, the Florida House of Representatives amended the bill to address commercial surrogacy contracts as well. The amendment effectively prevents, for example, a Russian or Chinese citizen from signing a commercial surrogacy contract with someone in Florida.

Arkansas U.S. Senator Tom Cotton and Florida U.S. Sen. Rick Scott recently urged the U.S. Department of Justice to investigate surrogacy centers operated by foreign nationals.

In a letter to U.S. Attorney General Pam Bondi, the senators wrote,

“Recent reports have uncovered more than 107 Chinese-owned surrogacy agencies operating in Southern California alone. These agencies cater almost exclusively to wealthy Chinese clients, and some are affiliated with Chinese state-owned entities. Chinese nationals pay women living in the United States more than $50,000 to serve as surrogates. The children are born on United States soil and granted automatic citizenship. And in most cases, the infants are promptly flown to China and raised there under the direct influence of the Chinese Communist Party.”

We have written many times about how commercial surrogacy is a largely unregulated industry that exploits women and hurts children.

Unlike many other countries, the United States has relatively few restrictions on surrogacy — and that’s a problem.

Last year The Wall Street Journal uncovered how Chinese billionaires are taking advantage of America’s surrogacy industry to create what some call “mega-families” with dozens or even hundreds of children.

The Wall Street Journal also has written about allegations of financial fraud among commercial surrogacy businesses.

In December, The New York Times and NBC News both reported about investigations into a surrogacy agency that abruptly shutdown, causing clients to lose an estimated $2 – $5 million total.

News outlets have reported that a sex offender convicted of crimes involving children was able to obtain a child through surrogacy in Pennsylvania as a result of lax state regulations.

And The New Yorker reported last month that a wealthy couple in Los Angeles allegedly used a surrogacy agency they operated to hire dozens of women across the U.S. to carry more than 20 children for them. According to the magazine, the children were removed from the home and placed in foster care after one of them was hospitalized with injuries “consistent with ‘those sustained during a car accident or from being shaken.’”

Stories like these underscore why social commentators and policymakers worldwide have raised concerns about commercial surrogacy.

It’s bad when commercial surrogacy goes wrong — but it’s important to remember that surrogacy never “goes right” either.

Commercial surrogacy deliberately deprives children of their biological mothers or fathers.

It treats pregnancy like a “service” that can be purchased.

It treats women like commodities, and it treats children like products that can be made to order and sold for profit.

Commercial surrogacy also relies heavily on in vitro fertilization and other reproductive technologies that have serious problems of their own.

Human beings are not products that can be made to order, bought, and sold. That’s why it’s essential for policymakers to enact real restrictions on commercial surrogacy contracts and agencies.

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

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Pro-Life Advocate Speaks Out Against Surrogacy

Bioethics, Surrogacy, ,

Pro-life advocate Dr. Abby Johnson recently posted a statement on social media opposing surrogacy, calling it “child abuse.”

Dr. Johnson was a Planned Parenthood clinic director until 2009, but she became pro-life after witnessing an ultrasound-guided abortion. Today she is a pro-life author and speaker and an advocate for women and unborn children.

In a statement posted last week, Dr. Johnson criticized gestational surrogacy, saying:

Two men can’t make a baby. Two women can’t make a baby. Two men or two women paying for surrogacy is child abuse, because it purposely separates that child from their God-given right to a mom and dad. Children aren’t pets.

They’re human beings with rights.

We have written many times about how surrogacy — especially commercial surrogacy — exploits women and hurts children.

In commercial surrogacy arrangements, corporate agencies hire women to carry children for paying customers.

Unlike many other countries, the United States has relatively few regulations when it comes to surrogacy — and that’s a problem.

Last year, news outlets reported that a sex offender convicted of crimes involving children was able to obtain a child through surrogacy in Pennsylvania as a result of lax state regulations.

The New Yorker reported last week that a wealthy couple in Los Angeles allegedly used a surrogacy agency they operated to hire dozens of women across the U.S. to carry more than 20 children for them. According to the magazine, the children were removed from the home and placed in foster care after one of them was hospitalized with injuries “consistent with ‘those sustained during a car accident or from being shaken.'”

Last year The Wall Street Journal uncovered how Chinese billionaires are exploiting America’s surrogacy industry to create what some call “mega-families” with dozens or even hundreds of children.

The Wall Street Journal also has written about allegations of financial fraud among commercial surrogacy businesses.

In December, The New York Times and NBC News both reported about investigations into a surrogacy agency that abruptly shutdown, causing clients to lose an estimated $2 – $5 million total.

Stories like these underscore why social commentators and policymakers worldwide have raised concerns about commercial surrogacy and how it financially pressures women.

It’s bad when commercial surrogacy goes wrong — but it’s important to remember that surrogacy never “goes right” either.

Commercial surrogacy deliberately deprives children of their biological mothers or fathers.

It treats pregnancy like a “service” that can be purchased.

It treats women like commodities, and it treats children like products that can be made to order and sold for profit.

Commercial surrogacy also relies heavily on in vitro fertilization and other reproductive technologies that have serious problems of their own.

Family Council has opposed commercial surrogacy in Arkansas, but unfortunately, Arkansas’ commercial surrogacy laws are very lax.

Since 2017, Family Council has supported legislation to prohibit commercial surrogacy in Arkansas. So far, those restrictions have not passed.

Human beings are not products that can be made to order, bought, and sold. That’s why Family Council opposes commercial surrogacy — and why we will continue to oppose it.

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

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Children Are Greater Than Our Desires: Guest Column

Marriage, , , , ,

“Babies aren’t a tool for adult validation,” and other messages society seems primed to hear.

Recently, singer Meghan Trainor posted a picture of herself in a hospital bed, teary-eyed, and holding a newborn for skin-to-skin contact. The woman who carried and birthed the child, however, was nowhere in sight. Trainor and her husband used a surrogate.  

Of course, as images go these days, this one is preferable to men pretending to be postpartum, having just bought a child via the surrogacy market. But that just shows how disordered our society is about marriage, sex, and babies.  

Many people, including many Christians, consider surrogacy a harmless and helpful technological advancement. People want babies, and more babies are good, the thinking goes. All the while, a blind eye is turned to the severe moral problems inherent in the mechanics of surrogacy, including the commodification of children and the desecration of the maternal bond. Not to mention, the system is so underregulated, pedophiles and child abusers have been able to acquire victims.

Thankfully, more are learning the truth about this practice and this industry. As Katy Faust of Them Before Us put it in response to Trainor’s post: 

Thousands are finally speaking up against surrogacy. The tide is turning. We’re grateful your baby is here, alive, and loved. But we won’t pretend the method was harmless. No child should be created through a system that turns women into means and babies into products. 

That system is enabled and protected by the 2015 Obergefell Supreme Court decision. Severing marriage in law from the intrinsically biological realities of male and female also severed the connection between children and those whose union creates them. Marriage is presumed now, both in culture and in law, to be an institution of adult feelings. Kids are accessories.  

As Faust told The Colson Center: 

Across the globe 38 countries have legalized gay marriage. Exactly 0 of them have simultaneously strengthened children’s claim to their own mother and father. All of them have either abolished or significantly weakened the idea that children belong to the two people responsible for their existence. 

This week, Faust announced the formation of a coalition of leaders and organizations called Greater Than. Advocates of same-sex “marriage” campaigned on the promise of marriage equality, posting memes of equal signs across social media. Greater Than proclaims the hard truth that children are treated as less than when they are deprived of mom and dad. As Faust described,  

Greater Than is a coalition of pastors, parents, influencers, policy makers, theologians, lawyers, students, and normie Americans who are all speaking with one voice. What are we saying? “Don’t touch the kids.” Marriage does not exist as a tool for adult validation. It is God’s Plan A for child protection, and we intend to retake it on their behalf. 

Rather than seeing kids as truly equal and deserving adult protection, the dangerous combination of abortion, surrogacy, and redefining marriage reduces them to one option among many, as a means to fulfill adult desires. Legally, just as Roe v. Wade deprived preborn children of their right to life, Obergefell is depriving children of their right to their mom and dad. Just as a culture of death enables the holocaust of abortion, a culture of sexual autonomy enables the commodification of children. As pro-lifers have done for decades now on the issue of abortion, so the Greater Than coalition is committed to the legal and cultural work necessary to protect children. 

The Colson Center is proud to join this list of 43 (and growing!) organizations and leaders. The Greater Than website features answers to difficult questions, opportunities to get involved, and the latest news and information about this pressing problem. 

Join the movement. As the Greater Than website puts it: 

The line has been crossed. The cost is our kids. It’s time to fight back—with truth, courage, and conviction. It is our responsibility to give kids their identity, security, and childhood back. 

Copyright 2026 by the Colson Center for Christian Worldview. Reprinted from BreakPoint.org with permission.

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