Republican Congressmen Introduce Measures to Prevent Sex-Offenders, Foreign Nationals from Acquiring Children Through Surrogacy

Bioethics, Surrogacy, ,

Earlier this month, more than a dozen GOP congressmen co-sponsored legislation preventing sex-offenders from acquiring children through surrogacy and prohibiting foreign nationals from entering into surrogacy contracts in the U.S.

Federal law prohibits sex-offenders from adopting children, but the law does not address commercial surrogacy contracts.

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 loopholes in state and federal regulations.

News outlets also report Chinese nationals are exploiting America’s largely unregulated surrogacy industry to acquire children born in the U.S.

On June 3, Rep. Scott Perry (R-PA-10) along with several co-sponsors in the U.S. House of Representatives filed legislation to close these loopholes in U.S. surrogacy law.

The federal Protecting Kids from Creeps Act would “prohibit surrogacy agencies from facilitating surrogacy contracts with sex offenders,” and H.R. 9132 would “prohibit foreign nationals from entering into or enforcing surrogacy contracts in the United States.”

It’s bad when commercial surrogacy “goes wrong” because of loopholes in state or federal law — 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 exploits women by treating them like commodities, and it exploits children by treating them like products that can be made to order and sold for profit.

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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Investigation Shows Birth Tourism Centers Operating on American Soil

Bioethics, Surrogacy, , , , ,

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.

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Guest Column: “There Is No Mama”

LGBT, , ,

A recent video exposed the injustice at the heart of same-sex marriage and commercial surrogacy. In it, a man bouncing a baby on his lap asks, “Who do you want? Dada or Pop?” The baby answered, “Mama!” To which, both the man and his unseen partner behind the camera laughed and said, “There is no Mama.” They continue to badger the child, who then begins to cry.  

The most obvious evil portrayed in the video is the relentless teasing of a baby. The deeper evil, however, is not that the men were mean. In fact, being mean was only the insult added to the injury of forcing their farcical arrangement on a baby and calling it a family. 

Because, and everyone knows this including these two men suppressing the truth by their wickedness, there is a mama. She is not included in the video, nor is she in the life of the baby she carried and who needs her, but she exists. She’s been cut out of her child’s life, presumably by her own choice. The baby, however, did not make a choice. And now two men who have appropriated the title of “parents” are badgering the baby into affirming their lifestyle choice. 

Perhaps, the infant is only doing what infants often do, babbling out those syllables that are often among the first learned by young ones across times and places and culture. But of course, these syllables always refer to the same person. They are, in the end, a primal cry of children for a particular someone who should always be there for them. 

Anyone who has spent time around babies understands what is playing out in this scene. For little ones, mama is the world. In fact, according to childhood policy expert Dr. Dan Wuori, kids often say “Dada” before “Mama” not because the mom doesn’t matter as much but because she matters so much more. In their tiny, growing minds, they recognize “Dad” as a distinct person before they realize that “Mom” isn’t part of themselves. This innate and beautiful bond is intentionally broken when we pretend that a man can replace a mom, or whenever a child is acquired through surrogacy. 

Just as tragic is the embrace of same-sex “marriage” or such reproductive technologies by individuals, governments, medical authorities, and Christians, while failing to even take a cursory glance to consider what is best for the child. Any ethical concerns around in vitro fertilization and surrogacy have been deferred in order to protect the feelings and desires of adults. In fact, both in policy and in public discourse, we’ve lost the ability to even discern the difference between couples who suffer with infertility and same-sex couples who have chosen inherently sterile relationships but then demand children. As a result, what children need is tossed aside in the name of adult desires. Children become commodities in the marketplace of consumer-driven reproductive technologies. 

As Katy Faust, founder of the children’s rights group Them Before Us and the Greater Than campaign, said to the Colson Center: 

We’ve been sounding the alarm about surrogacy for years. The mother loss, the commodification, the fact that children often go home with unrelated adults, increasing risk of abuse and neglect. But videos like this do something that arguments and studies never can. They spark righteous rage that leads people to come out of the closet as defenders of the natural family. It is more and more clear that gay marriage didn’t just have to do with what takes place “in the privacy of the bedroom.” It impacts children. And when we see those children cry on camera, it motivates us to action. 

It should, at least. The word “natural” is accurate. Having chosen unnatural relationships, to quote Paul, these two dads now demand that even a baby must affirm what is unnatural. Even if they had not made that demand in such a cruel way in a video shared for social media clicks, great harm has been done to this child. And a culture that affirms their choice is complicit in that harm.  

Babies need their mamas. There are few things more obvious than that. Denying that reality is a tragedy. Harming children should be a crime.

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

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