Human reproduction gives rise to lots of different controversies, with the partisans not always aligned across issues the ways you might suppose. Here are two articles responding to a recent controversy in the news, one about a proposed ban on surrogacy in Texas, and one proposing more comprehensive regulation as a way of supporting access to surrogacy in the face of opposition.
Here's an article from the 19th News (named after the 19th Amendment to the US constitution, which gave women the right to vote), about how abortion opponents in Texas are hoping to also outlaw surrogacy there.
Why abortion opponents are turning their attention to banning surrogacy
"Anti-abortion activists and lawmakers in Texas are pressing to limit or even outlaw surrogacy, a new step toward restricting major forms of infertility treatment.
"Surrogacy, though far from common, has entered the national spotlight this summer, the result of an explosive case in which an Alaska woman named McKenna West — who had been hired to carry a pregnancy for a California-based couple — traveled to Texas to seek medical care after refusing to have an abortion. She gave birth in Dallas last week.
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"the case has become a lightning rod for national anti-abortion activists, including Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton, who intervened in the case on behalf of West to argue that the child must receive life-sustaining treatment in Texas, even though court records indicate his parents sought for him to receive care in California. (Paxton, who has frequently allied himself with social conservatives, is in a competitive race to represent Texas in the U.S. Senate.) West has secured representation from the Alliance Defending Freedom, a prominent anti-abortion legal group.
Abortion opponents have argued that the case underscores a need to outlaw surrogacy entirely.
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"Kristan Hawkins, the president of the national anti-abortion group Students for Life of America, argued on the social media platform X that surrogacy “is human trafficking with better marketing.”
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“It’s reasonable to expect some legislation will move at least out of the Senate on this topic,” John Seago, the head of Texas Right to Life, an anti-abortion organization that opposes surrogacy in all forms, told The 19th. Seago’s organization also opposes the freezing of and destruction of embryos that are not used for pregnancy, a standard component of IVF.
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"The Texas Public Policy Foundation, an influential right-wing think tank in the state, has also argued in favor of banning surrogacy. And the state Republican Party adopted a platform this summer saying it would support outlawing any “commercialization of human reproduction in Texas.”
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And here's a call for more (and more national) regulation of surrogacy, in the WSJ:
Surrogacy Is Getting Weird
Dozens of American babies commissioned by Chinese billionaires, felony charges, embryo mix-ups and more. By Emma Camp
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