U.S. Reps. Blake Moore (R-UT), Jen Kiggans (R-VA), and John Moolenaar (R-MI) on Jan. 13 unveiled a GOP-led bill to prevent foreign adversarial nations from abusing the American surrogacy industry, which gets used to obtain U.S. citizenship for their children and to traffic infants abroad.
“Allowing foreign adversaries unrestrained access to the U.S. surrogacy industry is a national security and humanitarian crisis waiting to happen,” said Rep. Moore, who sponsored the measure. “Most of the developed world already bans international commercial surrogacy due to trafficking risks, and this bill is a strong step in the right direction to prevent bad-faith actors from taking advantage of U.S. surrogate mothers and the children they bear.”
The Stopping Adversarial Foreign Exploitation of Kids in Domestic Surrogacy (SAFE KIDS) Act, H.R. 7040, has 16 Republican original cosponsors, including Rep. Kiggans, Rep. Moolenaar, and U.S. Reps. Pete Sessions (R-TX) and Michael Rulli (R-OH).
“Chinese nationals are exploiting gaps in U.S. law to buy children from America. This practice is an unconscionable attack on American values,” Rep. Moolenaar said. “This legislation will ensure accountability and protect innocent children from nationals of foreign adversary countries who want to buy American babies.”
If enacted, H.R. 7040 would invalidate commercial surrogacy agreements with citizens of foreign adversary countries, such as China, Russia, Iran, and North Korea.
The bill also would create a misdemeanor for brokers — not surrogates — who knowingly facilitate such agreements, according to a bill summary provided by the lawmakers.
“Foreign adversaries are taking advantage of American generosity and tolerance to undermine U.S. national security and commit espionage, including through our surrogacy programs,” said Rep. Kiggans. “It’s become dangerously common for malicious fraudsters of a foreign origin, particularly from Russia and China, to abuse our surrogacy programs to traffic children to their home countries.
“Without this bill,” she added, “these wealthy foreign nationals exploit our rules to give their children, sometimes numbering in the hundreds, U.S. passports, allowing these individuals to gain the privileges of citizenship without ever raising them in the United States.”
The SAFE KIDS Act would establish firm regulations that protect American surrogate mothers and their children from trafficking risks and threats to national security, said the congresswoman.