Stop the Exploitation of “Rent-A Womb” Industry

Tomorrow, the Senate Courts of Justice Committee will be voting on HB 110 (D-Sullivan), which will repeal the current prohibition on receiving payments to procure a surrogate mother to carry someone else’s child. The bill would open up Pandora’s box for the exploitation and commoditizing of vulnerable women and countless children.

HB 110 recently passed the House on a party-line vote of 50-48.  The bill would initiate a commercial marketplace for surrogacy in Virginia, which creates major incentives to exploit vulnerable women, by monetizing the demand for “rent-a-wombs.”

This will inevitably contribute to human trafficking of vulnerable women, anywhere in the world – not just in Virginia – as well as the children born through these contracts. There would be no limit to the amount of money surrogacy brokers can be paid to procure a surrogate mother, raising serious concerns about coercion and exploitation to meet private demands.

There are already nonprofit organizations that can currently pair people with a willing surrogate mother.  The General Assembly understood these inherent risks in 1991 when they passed the law prohibiting the payment of surrogacy brokers, and nothing about human nature has changed since then.