Investigation Shows Birth Tourism Centers Operating on American Soil
A new investigation shows Chinese birth tourism centers are operating on U.S. soil — and the problem may be bigger than most Americans realize.
We have written repeatedly how commercial surrogacy laws in the U.S. make it possible for corporations and wealthy couples pay women thousands of dollars to carry children for them, and news outlets report Chinese nationals are exploiting America’s largely unregulated surrogacy industry to acquire children born in the U.S. with U.S. citizenship. But concerns over “birth tourism” are growing in other ways.
The Daily Wire recently visited several homes in Houston that the State of Texas says are helping Chinese nationals travel to the U.S. on tourist visas “for the sole purpose of giving birth.” The homes are tied to a birthing center that has allegedly facilitated the births of more than 1,000 American-born babies who are then taken back to China. Because the children are born on U.S. soil, they receive birthright citizenship — even though the parents intend to raise the children in China.
This is not a small or isolated problem. Peter Schweizer, President of the Government Accountability Institute, testified before the U.S. Senate in March that between 750,000 and 1.5 million Chinese babies have been born in the U.S. specifically to obtain American citizenship — with the intention of being raised in China. In his testimony, Schweizer said:
These individuals grow up in China, often educated in CCP-controlled schools with distorted views of U.S. history, values, and culture. They have no lived connection or demonstrated allegiance to our country, yet they possess full rights as U.S. citizens: the ability to vote in elections, relocate here at will, and—upon turning 21—sponsor their parents as permanent residents.
In his testimony, Schweizer also pointed out how some birth tourism is carried out by people traveling to the U.S. on tourist visas while other birth tourism is committed by hiring commercial surrogates to bear children in the U.S.
Birth tourism wrongly exploits birthright citizenship, which is a legal principle meant to protect people born in the U.S. When it’s done in conjunction with commercial surrogacy, it also demeans women and children.
Social commentators and policymakers worldwide have raised concerns about how commercial surrogacy financially pressures women into providing children for paying customers.
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.
That’s part of the reason Family Council has opposed commercial surrogacy in Arkansas.
Human beings are not products that can be made to order, bought, or sold. Our laws need to respect that fact. Policymakers should take steps to address commercial surrogacy and “birth tourism” in America.
Articles appearing on this website are written with the aid of Family Council’s researchers and writers.