On June 4, two bills were introduced to deal with some of the most horrific abuses of children. The predators range from same-sex couples to pedophiles to rich Chinese ordering newborns for their own purposes. We will finally see laws that protect these children:
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Now a new pair of bills seeks to close the loopholes that enable the surrogacy industry and its abuse of both children and immigration laws.
Rep. Scott Perry, R-Penn., held a press conference with Rep. Tim Burchett, R-Tenn., and Rep. Randy Fine, R-Fla., on June 4 to introduce the Protecting Kids from Creeps Act and the Preventing International Surrogacy Exploitation Act. The bills, Perry said, aim to ‘put children first’ and ‘help prevent predators / foreign actors from obtaining children in our Nation for personal gain, profit, or other nefarious reasons.’
The people who are enabling this system are the surrogacy agencies, which are providing these babies. Usually, women are hired to carry a baby, and those babies are provided to parents who are unable to have their own children. But most of the criminal acts to purchase children come from pedophiles, same-sex couples, and Chinese nationals who want to “own” children born in America.
What is the nature of these two bills?
The first bill, the ‘Protecting Kids from Creeps Act,’ would prohibit registered sex offenders from entering surrogacy agreements or obtaining parental rights through assisted reproduction. It would also impose penalties on surrogacy agencies that facilitate such arrangements.
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The second bill, the ‘Preventing International Surrogacy Exploitation Act,’ would prohibit foreign nationals from obtaining children through U.S.-based surrogacy arrangements. In practical terms, it would close the American surrogacy market to international intended parents and address a growing area of concern within the billion-dollar global fertility industry.
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Who are the people participating in these nefarious activities? For one, same-sex couples seek out babies and young children for sexual acts. The Chinese have “fathered” hundreds of these babies through surrogacy clinics, hoping to establish birthright citizenship for them. And pedophiles are customers, too.
The results of these activities can be tragic for the surrogates and the babies:
Scott’s bill comes following the exposure of at least one illegal surrogacy ring in which U.S. women were duped into thinking that they were providing surrogacy services for American families, only to later discover that the intended family was fake, and the child the woman carried and gave birth to was later sold overseas.
Severe penalties have been enacted, to make sure the perpetrators realize how devastating and immoral these activities are:
Perry’s bill would protect children from child abusers by requiring surrogacy agencies to screen customers and conduct background checks. Any employees who willfully connected a predator with a surrogate would face a minimum of 20 years in federal prison. Any sex offender who tried to obtain a child via surrogacy would also face 20 years’ imprisonment. Leadership at negligent agencies would garner 10 years in prison and be barred from receiving federal grant money for violating the law.
These activities are unconscionable and immoral. They service sick and vile customers who prey on children. The agencies also manipulate and lie to the women who agree to be surrogates.
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This legislation should have been enacted long ago.
Image: Nogwater via Flickr, CC BY-SA 2.0 (cropped).