When Is Surrogacy An Evil Act?

There are many couples who long for a family but learn that one or both of them are infertile. A large number of infertile couples attempt other means to have a family, such as invitro treatment, adoptions, or surrogacy. When the action is blessed and a healthy child is the result, the happy couple and all their family and friends rejoice.

In most cases, the child is also blessed to be in a loving family. However, there are some cases where the child is abused, and some where the abuse is planned long before the child is born. Emma Waters reported on such a case in her article published in The Daily Signal. 

In a recent sting operation, the FBI arrested and charged a Chicago man for knowingly distributing material on child sexual assault and boasting about sexually abusing his young nieces and nephews.

The man’s arrest came less than a week before he and another man identified as his husband were set to collect their newborn son from a commercial surrogate in California.

Commercial surrogacy is a contractual agreement where someone pays a woman to gestate and birth an unrelated child for a fee. In the United States, it’s an underregulated and unaccountable practice. Unlike adoption, the intended parents are not required to undergo a background check or home visit.

Male same-sex couples or single men, who lack a womb in their fruitless arrangements, make up a large percentage of this industry’s clients. Morally, the inclusion of a third person in the package deal of marriage, sex, and procreation violates God’s “one flesh” vision.

Proponents tend to frame surrogacy as a beautiful experience in which a woman helps someone complete a chosen family. This overlooks serious concerns. Critics point out that surrogacy is effectively a form of baby-selling that exploits women who need financial assistance. Moreover, the practice flourishes when loose laws allow bad actors to create children.

Unfortunately, as the recent FBI arrest shows, these aren’t hypothetical concerns. Here are the all-too real details:

Adam Stafford King, a well-known Chicago veterinarian and dog breeder, was intercepted by the FBI when agents seized another pedophile’s phone and gained access to his messaging accounts on Telegram and Scruff.

King openly discussed how he preferred boys in the “single digits” and planned to sexually abuse his surrogate-born son. King sent photos of his son’s sonogram and newborn outfit in anticipation of the sexual abuse.

King’s husband and extended family claim they had no knowledge of this. The surrogate-born son, who may not be related to either man, was born around March 29. Unless a court intervened, King’s husband planned to collect the newborn child and raise him at his parents’ house for the time being.

If King and his husband were a one-time experience, it would be bad enough. However, there are other times that “men with a history of sexual abuse or pedophilic behavior” gained control of a child through surrogacy. Waters told of another couple:

A few months ago, the well-known You Tuber Shane Dawson and his partner created twin boys through a surrogacy contract. Dawson has admitted to masturbating to pictures of minors and googling child pornography. Such behavior made it unlikely that Dawson and his partner could pass an adoption screening, yet a surrogacy contract was no problem.

As children’s rights activist Katy Faust details, there is a growing list of men who have a history of child sexual abuse or intend to abuse their own child gained through surrogacy. And these are just the ones we know about.

Waters shared “one final, haunting question: What about the children?” No one seems to care about “what is best for the child?” Some problems include the following: 

1) The child is likely to never know his biological mother as such cases involve “an anonymous egg donor selected from a catalog.” The baby recognizes his gestational mother’s voice, disposition, and body but is handed to someone that is unrelated. 

2) Children who are reared by male partners are “at least 11 times more likely to suffer sexual or physical abuse as unrelated men frequent the home.” 

3) The child will eventually understand that he came from the process of in vitro fertilization, where parents can “eugenically select the kind of child they want,” including the sex of the embryo. 

4) The child will be forced with realization that “he was not conceived in a loving union but purchased through a highly lucrative contract” – not much different than purchasing a child after birth.

Michigan and Minnesota are two states that have made commercial surrogacy easier. Instead of legalizing “the buying and selling of children,” state and national laws “should encourage, whenever possible, married mothers and fathers to raise their children.” The laws should not legalize ways to abuse children.