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Florida Lawmakers Add Surrogacy Ban to Foreign Interference Measure

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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