Tell MA legislators to reject bill allowing selling of unborn children. Send a message today
(LifeSiteNews) — The Massachusetts’s House of Representatives just voted unanimously to pass a monstrous bill that would, ostensibly, allow women to sell their unborn children to the highest bidder.
The measure commodifies women and allows children to be treated as nothing more than chattel – as items to be sold – although none of the legislators are saying that out loud.
Known as the “Parentage Equality Bill,” or H.4672, the Act devilishly banishes the immutable truth that children should be raised in a loving home by their biological parents while obliterating the terms “mother” and “father,” trading them out for “person who gives birth” and “other parent,” or “genetic source.” Even the pronoun “his” is dumped in favor of a more ambiguous, non-gendered “their.”
The Act is written as if the complementarity of the sexes were an outdated social construct.
This bill redefines parenthood “on the basis of a ‘person’s intent to be a parent of a child,’” noted Patience Griswold of Them Before Us (TBU), an organization devoted to protecting children’s rights, writing at The Federalist. “In doing so, it strips all mention of mothers and fathers from parentage law, replacing these vital familial roles with gender-erased language.”
Sponsors say the bill will protect relationships between parents and children, but in reality it protects the rights of parents who obtain children through surrogacy. And many, if not most, of those parents will be homosexual men.
As such, while purporting to protect relationships between parents and children, the bill untethers the all-important, irreplaceable relationship every child has for his or her mother, completely disregarding that universal longing.
Apparently not a single legislator was troubled by the content or intent of the bill, which passed 156-0. It will now advance to the Massachusetts Senate.
It’s unsurprising that this measure is making its way through the Massachusetts legislature. After all, the Bay State was the first to embrace the impossible notion of same-sex “marriage” back in 2004, and its Supreme Court ruled more than three decades ago that same-sex partners could adopt kids.
Griswold describes the very thin line the proposed law creates between “parentage equality” and outright baby-selling:
In any other circumstance, if a woman accepts money in exchange for handing over her parental claim on her child, she has engaged in baby-selling. Under this bill, she can do exactly that if she has secured a valid surrogacy contract, even if she makes the arrangement with the purchasing parents after she has become pregnant, providing the contract is validated before the child is born.
Under H. 4672, the following would be perfectly legal: a woman undergoes the physical and mental health screenings required to become a surrogate, becomes pregnant via sperm from a sperm bank, and then posts to a surrogacy forum or social media group that she is not only available as a surrogate but already pregnant.
She could then choose to “match” with the couple willing to pay the highest “payment of consideration,” essentially auctioning off her child. As long as the surrogacy agreement meets the requirements outlined in the bill, it could be validated by a court and viewed as not only permissible but legally binding. However, if that same woman became pregnant and decided to make an agreement with a couple to adopt her child, while insisting that she be paid for placing her child with them, she would be prosecuted for baby selling.
After Wednesday’s vote, the Gay and Lesbian Alliance Against Defamation (GLAAD) issued a gleeful report on the passage of the legislation, focusing solely on the increased legal rights for LGBT-identifying individuals whose sexual relationships are 100 percent unable to produce children naturally while ignoring the erosion of the rights of children who might be purchased or otherwise obtained via the measure.
“What we are doing today is giving a tune up to our statutory structure to reflect the modern and contemporary ways that people become parents whether they are straight or gay,” said House Rep. Sarah Peake, a Democrat from Provincetown, New England’s gay Mecca.
“At the heart of this bipartisan legislation lies a simple yet profound principle: The recognition of legal parentage should not be contingent upon outdated norms or narrow definitions,” Rep. Hannah Kane, a Republican co-sponsor of the bill, said during her floor speech Wednesday. “It is a principle that acknowledges the diverse tapestry of modern families and affirms their right to legal recognition and protection under the law.”
In other words, children’s rights are being eroded in order to accommodate the desire of homosexuals who demand to experience parenthood. The “tapestry” Kane refers to is woven with garish rainbow colors; and the so-called “outdated norms or narrow definitions” refer to those that are based on the supreme truth regarding the complementarity of man and woman.
Perhaps the most truthful statement came from Massachusetts Attorney General Andrea Campbell, who admitted that the bill is meant to advance “reproductive and LGBTQ+ rights.”
“Our state parental laws have not kept pace with the diversity of modern-day families, and as other states take the necessary steps to protect families, provide stability for children and advance reproductive and LGBTQ+ rights, it is clear it is well past the time for us to act and pass the Massachusetts Parentage Act,” Campbell said.
Headlines from local media didn’t obscure the meaning of the law the way Massachusetts politicos did.
“Updated Parentage Act, which guarantees equal rights for LGBTQ+ parents, passes in the House,” blared one headline, while another admitted “Mass. House votes to expand the definition of ‘parent.’”
The legislation was supported by a vast array of LGBT and “reproductive rights” organizations, including the LGBT Washington, D.C. lobbying powerhouse, The Human Rights Campaign (HRC), Planned Parenthood League of Massachusetts, and Williams Institute on Sexual Orientation and Gender Identity Law and Public Policy.
Many of the supporting organizations profit from IVF and surrogacy procedures, which deny the dignity – and often end the lives – of unborn children.
“Reproductive equity is not a reality in Massachusetts until every individual – and every LGBTQ+ family – is able to make decisions about whether and when to parent, and to parent with dignity,” Reproductive Equity Now president Rebecca Hart Holder said in a statement. “This bill will protect family formation in a post-Dobbs world, ensure that LGBTQ+ parents have the protections they need to start or build their families.”
“Children have a right to be born free, not bought and sold. No amount of saccharine wording can mask the fact that the ‘Parentage Equality’ bill monetizes women’s bodies and turns children into products,” TBU’s Griswold concluded. “The women and children of Massachusetts deserve better.”
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List of organizations – provided by GLAAD – who supported the passage of Parentage Equality Bill, H.4672:
- American Academy of Adoption and Assisted Reproduction Attorneys
- American College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists
- ACLU of Massachusetts
- American Society for Reproductive Medicine
- Association of Family and Conciliation Courts – MA Chapter
- BAGLY, Baystate Health
- Boston IVF Fertility Clinic
- Boston Medical Center
- Cape Cod Healthcare, Inc.
- Center for Reproductive Rights
- Children’s Law Center of MA
- Children’s League of Massachusetts
- Circle Surrogacy & Egg Donation
- Citizens for Juvenile Justice
- COLAGE
- Committee for Public Counsel Services
- Conceiveabilities
- Csed Inc. (The Center for Surrogacy and Egg Donation)
- Eastern Bank Foundation
- Family Equality
- Fenway Health
- Fertility Within Reach, Friends of Children
- GLBTQ Legal Advocates & Defenders (GLAD)
- Greater Boston Family Law Inn of Courts
- Greater Boston PFLAG
- Human Rights Campaign
- Jewish Alliance for Law & Social Action
- Kauffman Law and Mediation
- Keshet
- Mass General Brigham
- Mass NOW
- Mass PPD Fund
- Massachusetts Advocates for Children
- Massachusetts Chapter of the American Academy of Pediatrics
- Massachusetts Commission on LGBTQ Youth
- Massachusetts Commission on the Status of Women
- Massachusetts LGBTQ Bar Association
- Massachusetts LGBTQ Political Caucus
- Massachusetts Medical Society
- Massachusetts Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Children
- Massachusetts LGBT Chamber of Commerce
- Massachusetts Trans Political Coalition
- MassEquality
- Mental Health Legal Advisors Committee
- Modern Family Law
- Bruce Hale, Esq.
- Movement Advancement Project
- National Association of Social Workers–MA Chapter
- National Center for Lesbian Rights
- New England Fertility Society
- New England Surrogacy
- Nichols, Delisle & Lightholder
- OUT MetroWest
- Planned Parenthood League of Massachusetts
- Progressive Massachusetts
- Reproductive Equity Now
- RESOLVE: The National Infertility Association
- Roxbury Youth Works
- SeedTrust
- SEIU 509
- Transhealth
- The Boston Foundation
- UMass Memorial Health
- Williams Institute on Sexual Orientation and Gender Identity Law and Public Policy
Tell MA legislators to reject bill allowing selling of unborn children. Send a message today
