Surrogacy and in vitro fertilization (IVF) are often discussed as niche medical or personal issues—matters best left to doctors, infertile couples, and private contracts.
That framing is misleading.
These practices now sit squarely at the intersection of law, economics, technology, ethics, and public policy.
They raise foundational questions about how American society understands human life, parenthood, bodily autonomy, contracts, and the moral limits of technology.
For voters—especially those concerned with family stability, human dignity, and the long-term direction of the nation—this issue can no longer be ignored.
What was once rare and experimental has become normalized, commercialized, and politically defended.
IVF is now a multi-billion-dollar industry, and surrogacy—once treated with suspicion across the political spectrum—is increasingly promoted as an unquestioned good.
As with abortion several decades ago, the speed of normalization has outpaced public moral reflection.
This topic matters not because of unusual or extreme cases, but because it reshapes how society answers a basic question: What is a child?
Is a child a gift to be received, or a product to be designed, contracted for, and delivered?
Growing Prevalence and Public Relevance
IVF is no longer a marginal practice.
According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, more than 2 percent of all U.S. births now result from assisted reproductive technologies, primarily IVF.
Millions of embryos are currently frozen in storage across the United States. Many will never be implanted. Some will be discarded. Others will be used for experimentation or destroyed as “excess.”
Commercial surrogacy has expanded rapidly, both domestically and internationally.
Wealthy Americans routinely contract with women—often economically vulnerable women—to carry children on their behalf.
States now compete to become “surrogacy-friendly jurisdictions,” rewriting family law to prioritize contractual intent over biological reality.
These developments force lawmakers to answer difficult questions:
- Who is the legal mother of a child?
- Can parental rights be signed away before birth?
- Can embryos be treated as property?
- Should children have a legal right to know their biological parents?
Once these questions enter statute and case law, they no longer remain “personal choices.” They become binding moral judgments imposed by the state.
Economic Impact and Industry Incentives
The fertility industry operates largely outside the moral scrutiny applied to other medical fields. IVF clinics profit from the creation of multiple embryos per cycle, even though many will never be born. Cryogenic storage facilities collect annual fees indefinitely.
Surrogacy agencies extract commissions from contractual pregnancies. Lawyers specialize in drafting agreements that pre-assign parental rights before a child exists.
This creates powerful economic incentives to:
- Overproduce embryos
- Normalize embryo destruction
- Treat women’s reproductive capacity as a service
- Reduce children to outcomes of contracts rather than persons with inherent rights
As with other industries tied to human vulnerability—gambling, pornography, or predatory lending—economic interests tend to push moral boundaries outward, not inward.
Public Safety, Exploitation, and Legal Conflicts
Surrogacy raises serious concerns about exploitation, even when conducted under the language of “choice.”
Women with fewer economic options are disproportionately represented among surrogates.
International surrogacy arrangements have collapsed into legal chaos when children are born stateless, disabled, or unwanted by commissioning parents.
Courts have already faced cases where:
- Intended parents rejected a child after prenatal diagnosis
- Surrogates were pressured to abort against their conscience
- Children were left in legal limbo after disputes between adults
These are not theoretical concerns. They are predictable consequences of treating reproduction as a contractual service rather than a moral reality grounded in human dignity.
Why Voters Should Care—Even If They Are Not Personally Affected
A citizen does not need to be infertile, wealthy, or considering surrogacy to be affected by these policies.
Once the law treats children as commodities, everyone lives downstream from that decision.
Just as immigration policy affects housing, labor markets, and public services—even for citizens who never cross a border—reproductive policy reshapes family law, education norms, inheritance rules, and social expectations about marriage and parenthood.
When biology is severed from legal identity, confusion does not stay confined to fertility clinics. It spreads into schools, courts, and cultural norms.
At its core, this issue asks whether America will continue to operate with a constrained vision of human nature, acknowledging moral limits and unintended consequences—or whether it will embrace an unconstrained vision, trusting technology and expert management to solve every human problem.
That divide now runs directly through the debate over IVF and surrogacy Political Topic Series
Articles in the Critical Issues series require more time to read than most content on this site. They are intentionally written as thorough, in-depth examinations of their subjects.
The Republican Party Perspective on Surrogacy and In Vitro Fertilization
The Republican Party’s position on surrogacy and IVF is best described as uneven, fragmented, and internally conflicted.
Unlike abortion—where the party has developed a relatively coherent pro-life framework—IVF and surrogacy occupy a gray zone where technological optimism, personal compassion, donor politics, and incomplete moral analysis collide.
This inconsistency is not accidental. IVF and surrogacy touch deeply emotional concerns—infertility, grief, longing for children—and many Republican lawmakers are reluctant to appear unsympathetic. As a result, the party often reacts defensively rather than legislating from first principles.
The 2024 Republican Party Platform
The 2024 Republican Party platform affirms the dignity of human life and the centrality of the family, but it does not offer a comprehensive ethical framework for IVF or surrogacy.
References to “supporting families,” “medical innovation,” and “parental rights” are present, yet the platform stops short of addressing embryo creation, embryo destruction, or the commodification of reproduction.
This silence has consequences. In the absence of clear guidance, lawmakers default to:
- Treating IVF as morally neutral medical care
- Framing surrogacy as a private contractual matter
- Avoiding distinctions between morally different reproductive arrangements
In short, the platform assumes good intentions rather than examining structures.
Legislative Advocacy and Republican Lawmakers
Many Republican lawmakers have publicly defended IVF access, particularly in response to court decisions that recognize embryos as having legal status. These defenses are often framed as protecting “families” from government interference.
However, this framing frequently fails to distinguish between:
- IVF that attempts to minimize embryo loss
- IVF protocols that intentionally overproduce and discard embryos
- The use of donor eggs or sperm that sever biological parenthood
- Gestational surrogacy arrangements that plan for parental transfer before birth
By collapsing all IVF practices into a single category, Republican advocacy can unintentionally defend the most ethically troubling forms of the practice.
Where Compassion Becomes Moral Blindness
Republicans often argue that opposing IVF or surrogacy risks alienating voters who struggle with infertility.
That concern is understandable—but it can also lead to policy driven by sentiment rather than moral clarity.
A constrained vision of human nature, long associated with conservative thought, insists that:
- Good intentions do not eliminate harmful consequences
- Technological capability does not equal moral permission
- Human limits must be acknowledged, not engineered away
When Republicans abandon that vision in reproductive ethics, they mirror the very technocratic thinking they oppose elsewhere.
The Same-Sex Parenting Factor
One area where these moral blind spots become especially clear is same-sex parenting.
Surrogacy and IVF are not peripheral to same-sex family formation—they are structurally necessary. Two men cannot have a child without:
- An egg donor
- A surrogate
- Legal contracts transferring parental rights
Two women cannot have a child without:
- Sperm donation
- The intentional exclusion of the biological father
Yet many Republicans who oppose same-sex marriage or gender ideology hesitate to confront the reality that surrogacy and IVF function as enforcement mechanisms for those very arrangements.
Once the law recognizes:
- Contractual parenthood over biological parenthood
- “Intent” as superior to natural relations
- Parenthood as a customizable outcome
…the state must enforce these arrangements equally, including for same-sex couples.
This creates a contradiction: Republicans may verbally affirm the importance of mothers and fathers while supporting reproductive systems that intentionally design children to be motherless or fatherless.
State-Level Republican Divergence
At the state level, Republican leadership varies widely. Some states have:
- Expanded legal protections for IVF clinics
- Passed surrogacy-friendly legislation to attract business
- Redefined parenthood to prioritize contracts over biology
Others have raised concerns about embryo rights or restricted commercial surrogacy.
These divisions reflect a deeper uncertainty:
Is conservatism merely about individual choice and market freedom, or does it involve moral limits rooted in human nature?
Internal Republican Disagreement
Within the Republican coalition, disagreements tend to fall along these lines:
- Pro-life conservatives who see embryo destruction as morally unacceptable
- Libertarian-leaning Republicans who emphasize private contracts and autonomy
- Pragmatic politicians focused on electoral optics rather than ethical coherence
The lack of a unified position allows Democrats and progressive activists to define the narrative, often portraying any restriction as hostility toward families rather than concern for children.
A Missed Opportunity for Moral Leadership
The Republican Party is uniquely positioned to offer a principled alternative to progressive reproductive ideology. Its historical emphasis on family, limits, and moral responsibility aligns naturally with a cautious approach to IVF and surrogacy.
Yet too often, Republicans defend these practices without examining their structure, their incentives, or their long-term cultural impact.
That failure does not stem from malice—but from an unwillingness to follow the moral logic to its conclusion.
The Democrat Party Perspective on Surrogacy and In Vitro Fertilization
Unlike Republicans, Democrats approach surrogacy and IVF with far greater ideological consistency, although their ideology itself is corrupt.
While individual lawmakers may differ in tone or emphasis, the party as a whole treats assisted reproduction not as a morally complex issue requiring restraint, but as a rights-based entitlement that must be protected, expanded, and insulated from moral objection.
Where Republicans hesitate, Democrats advance. Where Republicans fragment, Democrats consolidate.
The 2024 Democrat Party Platform
The 2024 Democrat Party platform frames reproductive matters almost entirely through the language of autonomy, access, and equality. While IVF and surrogacy are not always named explicitly, they are subsumed under broader commitments to:
- “Reproductive freedom”
- “Family diversity”
- “LGBTQ+ equality”
- “Freedom from religious interference”
In this framework, the moral status of embryos is deliberately left undefined—or implicitly denied—because acknowledging it would impose moral limits on technological outcomes. The platform treats reproductive technologies as extensions of healthcare, rather than as ethically distinct practices involving the creation and disposal of human life.
The absence of moral language is itself revealing.
Reproductive Outcomes as Civil Rights
Democrats increasingly treat the ability to obtain a child as a civil right. IVF access, donor conception, and surrogacy are framed as matters of nondiscrimination—particularly for same-sex couples.
Once reproduction is cast in civil rights terms, several conclusions follow automatically:
- Any restriction becomes discrimination
- Moral objections become bigotry
- Religious conscience becomes an obstacle to be overridden
This logic mirrors earlier arguments used to nationalize abortion policy and later to redefine marriage.
Same-Sex Parenting as a Driving Force
Surrogacy and IVF are not incidental to the Democrat position—they are structural necessities for same-sex parenting models that the party actively promotes.
Democrats openly argue that:
- Children do not need both a mother and a father
- Biology is less important than intent
- Parenthood is defined by desire and affirmation, not by nature
Under this view, a child’s right to biological parents is reframed as a relic of tradition. The intentional exclusion of a mother or father is not seen as a loss, but as a morally neutral—or even celebratory—outcome.
Surrogacy contracts and donor conception are therefore not regrettable compromises. They are tools of ideological consistency, ensuring that the law treats all family forms as functionally interchangeable.
Embryos as Property, Not Persons
Democrat lawmakers overwhelmingly reject any legal recognition of embryos as human beings. Court rulings or legislation that suggest otherwise are treated as existential threats to reproductive autonomy.
This position is essential to defending IVF as currently practiced. Acknowledging embryo personhood would require:
- Limits on embryo creation
- Restrictions on freezing and destruction
- Ethical scrutiny of selective implantation
Rather than reform IVF to minimize harm, Democrats choose to deny the moral problem altogether.
Legislation and Federal Advocacy
At the federal level, Democrats have repeatedly:
- Introduced legislation to guarantee nationwide access to IVF
- Opposed conscience protections for medical professionals
- Pressured states to liberalize surrogacy laws
- Framed opposition as religious extremism
These efforts intensified during the Biden administration, where reproductive policy was explicitly tied to Progressive identity politics and administrative enforcement.
State and City-Level Implementation
Progressive-controlled states such as California, New York, Massachusetts, Illinois, and Washington have moved aggressively to:
- Legalize or expand commercial surrogacy
- Enforce gender-neutral parenthood definitions
- Override biological distinctions in birth certificates
- Shield reproductive industries from liability
These states often present themselves as “safe havens,” signaling not neutrality but moral endorsement.
Cities like Berkeley, Cambridge, Seattle, and New York City serve as testing grounds where ideology is implemented first, and consequences are addressed later—if at all.
No Meaningful Internal Democrat Dissent
Unlike Republicans, Democrats exhibit little internal disagreement on this issue. Dissenters are quickly marginalized, framed as regressive, or accused of importing religious dogma into public policy.
The party’s ideological discipline is enforced not only by leadership but by allied institutions—media, advocacy groups, professional associations, and courts.
This unity is not accidental. It reflects a worldview in which:
- Human nature is malleable
- Technology is liberating
- Moral limits are oppressive
- Outcomes justify methods
From Choice to Obligation
Perhaps the most revealing shift in Democrat rhetoric is the movement from choice to entitlement.
What begins as “access” quickly becomes expectation, and then enforcement.
Once the state recognizes a right to reproductive outcomes, it must:
- Compel recognition by institutions
- Punish refusal as discrimination
- Silence moral objections as harmful speech
This trajectory is already visible—and IVF and surrogacy sit squarely within it.
The Libertarian Perspective on Surrogacy and In Vitro Fertilization
Libertarians approach surrogacy and IVF through a fundamentally different moral lens than either Republicans or Democrats. Their position is rooted in individual autonomy, property rights, and contractual freedom, with minimal concern for collective moral norms or inherited social institutions.
While Libertarians are not a dominant force in American governance, their ideas exert disproportionate influence—especially on Republicans who lean heavily toward market solutions and personal liberty.
The Libertarian Party Platform
The Libertarian Party platform emphasizes:
- Maximum individual freedom
- Minimal state interference
- Voluntary contracts as the primary organizing principle of society
Under this framework, surrogacy and IVF are generally viewed as:
- Private agreements between consenting adults
- Medical services governed by market choice
- Matters beyond the moral jurisdiction of the state
If all parties consent, Libertarians see little reason for regulation.
Alignment with Democrats in Practice
Although Libertarians often differ sharply from Democrats rhetorically, they frequently align with Democrats in outcome on this issue.
Both reject:
- Embryo personhood
- State-imposed moral limits on reproduction
- Appeals to tradition or natural law
The difference lies in justification. Democrats invoke equality and rights. Libertarians invoke liberty and consent. But in both cases, the child’s interests are secondary, and the moral structure of reproduction is flattened into adult preference.
Where Libertarian Logic Breaks Down
Libertarianism struggles to answer several unavoidable questions:
- Can a child consent to the conditions of his creation?
- Can parental rights be transferred by contract before birth?
- Is the womb merely rentable space?
- Is human life reducible to property interests?
By treating children as outcomes of agreements rather than as moral subjects with inherent claims, Libertarianism reveals its weakness when applied to family formation.
Why Libertarians Are Addressed Only Tangentially
Libertarians lack the institutional power to set national policy. However, their assumptions quietly influence Republican rhetoric—particularly when Republicans default to “government shouldn’t interfere” arguments without asking what exactly is being protected.
In this sense, Libertarian logic functions as a solvent, dissolving conservative moral instincts while offering no durable replacement.
Progressive Principles and Their Influence on Democrat Policy
To understand Democrat policy on IVF and surrogacy, one must understand Progressivism (wokeness, Cultural Marxism, political correctness, identity politics, critical theory/intersectionality, Neo-Marxism). These terms are not identical, but they share overlapping assumptions that shape modern Progressive thought.
This section is not a caricature. It is an examination of governing ideas.
Core Progressive Presuppositions
At the heart of Progressivism are several key assumptions:
First, human nature is plastic. Biology does not impose moral limits; it presents challenges to be overcome through technology, policy, and expertise.
Second, inequality of outcomes signals injustice. If some people cannot achieve desired reproductive outcomes naturally, the state should intervene to equalize results.
Third, institutions must be deconstructed. Traditional family structures—mother, father, child—are treated as historical constructs rather than moral realities.
Fourth, intent overrides nature. Desire, self-identification, and personal narrative determine legitimacy, not biological facts.
These assumptions make IVF and surrogacy not merely permissible, but morally necessary.
Technology as Moral Liberation
Progressivism treats technology as inherently emancipatory. IVF and surrogacy are framed as victories over limitation, suffering, and “unfair” biological constraints.
Moral hesitation is interpreted as:
- Fear of progress
- Religious intrusion
- Bigotry disguised as ethics
In this worldview, restraint is not wisdom—it is oppression.
Why Surrogacy Is Banned in China and Much of Europe
It is often assumed that opposition to surrogacy reflects religious conservatism or American culture wars.
That assumption collapses under international comparison.
China, along with many European nations, has banned or severely restricted surrogacy—not because of theological objections, but because of documented abuses of women and children.
Countries including France, Germany, Italy, Spain, and Switzerland prohibit commercial surrogacy outright.
Others allow limited forms but ban compensation or cross-border arrangements.
Their reasoning is consistent: surrogacy commodifies women’s bodies, exploits economic inequality, and treats children as transferable goods.
China’s ban is particularly instructive. Despite its authoritarian governance and aggressive use of technology in other areas, the Chinese government has concluded that surrogacy produces:
- Coercion of poor women
- Underground trafficking networks
- Abandonment of children with disabilities
- Legal chaos regarding parentage
- Profound ethical degradation
That these conclusions are shared by secular European democracies should give Americans pause. When nations with radically different political systems arrive at the same conclusion, it suggests the problem lies not in ideology—but in the practice itself.
The irony is stark: countries that prohibit surrogacy domestically often rely on the United States to absorb its ethical costs. American women become surrogates for foreign clients whose own governments have judged the practice too abusive to permit.
This should expose the weakness of the argument that surrogacy is merely a private choice. If it were harmless, it would not require legal outsourcing.
Redefining Parenthood
Progressive ideology detaches parenthood from sex, marriage, and biology. Instead, it elevates:
- Emotional intent
- Affirmation
- Legal recognition
This is why Democrat policies aggressively promote gender-neutral parentage, erase mother/father distinctions, and prioritize contractual arrangements.
Once this shift occurs, children are no longer seen as belonging to a natural order. They are projects of will, shaped by adult desire and institutional support.
Same-Sex Parenting as Ideological Fulfillment
Same-sex parenting functions as a litmus test within Progressive thought. If biology matters, the ideology collapses. Therefore, biology must be minimized.
IVF and surrogacy become indispensable tools—not to serve children, but to validate a worldview that denies natural limits altogether.
The child’s loss of a mother or father is reframed as irrelevant, unknowable, or morally neutral. Any suggestion otherwise is labeled harmful.
Why Moral Language Disappears
Progressivism avoids moral language not because it lacks moral commitments, but because its commitments cannot survive scrutiny if stated plainly.
Terms like:
- “Access”
- “Choice”
- “Equity”
- “Care”
function as moral placeholders, obscuring the underlying reality of embryo destruction, commodification, and planned family fragmentation.
The Governing Assumption
The governing Progressive assumption is simple: If something can be done, and someone wants it, preventing it is unjust.
That assumption drives Democrat policy on IVF and surrogacy from top to bottom.
Do Democrat Actions Match Their Official Platform?
“In politics, what you DO is what you believe. Everything else is cottage cheese.”
— Senator Joseph N. Kennedy
This principle is especially useful when evaluating Democrat policy on surrogacy and IVF. The party’s platform language emphasizes compassion, access, and equality. But governing reveals priorities more clearly than slogans.
When Democrats hold power, their actions demonstrate a consistent pattern: Progressive ideology overrides moral restraint, institutional limits, and dissenting conscience.
Platform Language vs. Policy Enforcement
Official Democrat platforms tend to avoid specifics about embryo status, surrogacy contracts, or donor conception. The ambiguity is strategic. It allows broad coalitions to remain intact while policy is advanced through regulation, litigation, and administrative action rather than explicit legislative debate.
In practice, however, Democrat leadership governs as if:
- Embryos have no moral status
- Biology is irrelevant to parenthood
- Reproductive outcomes are entitlements
- Religious objection is suspect
The Biden Administration as a Case Study
Under the Biden administration, reproductive policy was reframed as a civil rights issue. IVF access was repeatedly defended without qualification. No effort was made to distinguish ethical IVF practices from those involving routine embryo destruction.
The administration:
- Publicly opposed legal recognition of embryos
- Supported expansive interpretations of reproductive healthcare
- Encouraged federal agencies to shield reproductive providers from scrutiny
- Treated moral objections as political threats
The moral status of children created through these systems was never addressed—only the desires of adults.
Progressive States as Laboratories
Progressive-controlled states reveal the endgame more clearly than federal rhetoric.
In states such as California, New York, Massachusetts, Illinois, Washington, and Oregon:
- Commercial surrogacy is legalized and promoted
- Parental rights are assigned by contract, not biology
- Birth certificates are rewritten to erase mother/father distinctions
- Same-sex parenting is structurally privileged
- Conscience protections are narrowed or eliminated
These states function as ideological laboratories, implementing Progressive theory with minimal resistance.
Equal Standards or Ideological Immunity?
Democrats frequently apply moral scrutiny to corporations, churches, schools, and families—but exempt reproductive industries from the same examination.
Consider the inconsistency:
- Markets are condemned for commodifying labor—except when commodifying reproduction
- Exploitation is decried—except when justified by consent language
- Power imbalances are scrutinized—except when wealthy parents contract with poorer women
This double standard exposes the real priority: outcomes aligned with Progressive identity politics.
Deceptive Language and Moral Evasion
Democrat leadership relies heavily on euphemism:
- “Family-building” instead of reproductive engineering
- “Gestational carrier” instead of surrogate mother
- “Reproductive material” instead of embryos
- “Affirming care” instead of irreversible consequences
This language does not clarify reality—it conceals it.
Soft and Hard Authoritarian Tendencies
When resistance arises, Democrats increasingly turn to enforcement rather than persuasion.
Examples include:
- Mandating recognition of contractual parenthood
- Penalizing institutions that dissent
- Using regulatory agencies to bypass legislative debate
- Framing opposition as hate or misinformation
This is not accidental. It reflects a belief that moral disagreement itself is dangerous.
Democrat actions consistently go beyond their stated platform. The behavior of leadership—especially in Progressive states—reveals a worldview that prioritizes ideological consistency and reproductive entitlement over moral caution.
The party does not merely tolerate IVF and surrogacy. It reorders law and culture around them.
Evaluating Republican and Democrat Positions from the Perspective of the Opposition
Political disagreements over IVF and surrogacy are not merely policy disputes. They arise from competing visions of human nature, moral authority, and the purpose of government. Thomas Sowell’s distinction between constrained and unconstrained visions is especially helpful here.
Constrained vs. Unconstrained Visions
A constrained vision assumes:
- Human nature is flawed and limited
- Good intentions do not prevent harm
- Moral tradeoffs are unavoidable
- Institutions exist to restrain excess and protect the vulnerable
An unconstrained vision assumes:
- Human problems are solvable through expertise and planning
- Technology can overcome natural limits
- Intent and outcome matter more than structure
- Moral objections are obstacles to progress
These visions explain far more than party slogans.
How Each Party Fits These Visions
- Republicans aspire to a constrained vision but often abandon it under emotional or political pressure—especially on IVF.
- Democrats consistently operate from an unconstrained vision, particularly in reproductive policy.
- Progressives intensify the unconstrained vision by moralizing outcomes and punishing dissent.
- Libertarians flatten moral concerns into contract law, unintentionally reinforcing the unconstrained vision.
- Biblical Christianity represents the most fully developed constrained vision, grounding limits in creation, not policy preference.
Common Criticisms of the Republican Position
Critics argue that Republicans:
- Want to impose religious beliefs through law
- Lack compassion for infertile couples
- Are inconsistent by opposing abortion but defending IVF
- Focus on embryos while ignoring born children
These critiques gain traction precisely because Republican messaging is often incoherent.
Counter-response:
Republicans are most persuasive when they emphasize structure rather than sentiment. The concern is not about policing desire, but about refusing systems that require harm in order to function—especially the routine destruction of embryos and the contractual separation of children from biological parents.
Common Criticisms of the Democrat Position
Critics argue that Democrats:
- Reduce children to entitlements
- Treat biology as irrelevant
- Silence moral disagreement
- Ignore long-term social consequences
Democrats often respond by labeling critics as reactionary or discriminatory.
Counter-response:
A policy that cannot tolerate moral disagreement is not neutral—it is coercive. The charge is not that Democrats lack compassion, but that they have redefined compassion to exclude moral limits.
Tone-Deaf Statements Revealing Blind Spots
Across party leadership, certain statements expose underlying assumptions:
- Claims that “children don’t need a mother and a father” ignore decades of social science and common sense.
- Assertions that embryos are “potential life” conflict with basic biological reality.
- Framing all resistance as “hate” substitutes accusation for argument.
Such statements undermine credibility and reveal ideological rigidity.
Opposition critiques clarify the debate by forcing each party to reveal its assumptions. Where Republicans hesitate, Democrats advance. Where Democrats moralize outcomes, Republicans often fail to articulate first principles.
The biblical worldview remains distinct because it refuses to choose between truth and compassion.
Credible Suspicions About Party Strategies and Motives
Political motives are best inferred not from stated intentions but from consistent behavior over time. On surrogacy and IVF, both major parties reveal strategic priorities that go beyond compassion or neutrality.
Democrat Strategic Motives
A reasonable observer can identify several strategic incentives driving Democrat advocacy.
First, coalition maintenance. IVF and surrogacy are indispensable to Progressive identity politics, particularly for same-sex couples. Any moral limit placed on these practices would fracture a core constituency. As a result, Democrats defend the entire reproductive apparatus rather than regulate its excesses.
Second, institutional alignment. The fertility industry, legal associations, academic bioethics departments, and activist NGOs overwhelmingly lean Progressive. Democrats benefit politically from deferring to “experts” who share their ideological assumptions.
Third, precedent protection. Acknowledging embryo dignity in IVF would undermine abortion jurisprudence. For Democrats, IVF must remain morally neutral or abortion access becomes logically unstable.
Tone-deaf statements minimizing embryo status or dismissing concerns about commodification suggest strategic denial rather than reasoned disagreement.
Transnational Surrogacy, Birthright Citizenship, and the Exploitation of American Women
One of the most disturbing developments in modern surrogacy is its increasing use by foreign nationals—particularly wealthy Chinese couples—who contract with American women to produce U.S.-born children. These arrangements exploit gaps in U.S. law, differences in international regulations, and the economic vulnerability of surrogates.
China prohibits surrogacy under its own domestic law, yet enforcement within its borders has not prevented Chinese nationals from outsourcing the practice to countries where it remains legal or weakly regulated.
The United States has become a preferred destination because children born on U.S. soil automatically receive American citizenship, regardless of the parents’ nationality.
Reports and investigative journalism indicate that some foreign commissioning parents employ multiple American surrogates simultaneously, implanting embryos in more than one woman to increase the likelihood of a successful pregnancy. When more than one surrogate conceives, or when prenatal testing reveals abnormalities, women have reportedly been pressured—sometimes contractually—to abort.
This arrangement reduces the surrogate to a contingency plan rather than a mother, and the child to a product subject to quality control. The woman’s bodily autonomy exists only insofar as it serves the commissioning parents’ desired outcome.
The abuse here is not incidental—it is structural. When reproduction is organized around contracts, profit, and international arbitrage, the most vulnerable party inevitably bears the risk. In this case, that risk falls on American women whose reproductive capacity is treated as a renewable resource for foreign clients seeking citizenship, convenience, or genetic selection.
This practice also raises serious national concerns. Birthright citizenship was never designed to function as a commercial incentive tied to global fertility markets. Surrogacy-driven citizenship undermines the moral and civic foundations of immigration law while entangling the United States in ethical abuses that other nations have explicitly rejected.
Republican Strategic Motives
Republican motives are more defensive and fragmented.
First, electoral fear. Many Republicans worry that any criticism of IVF will be framed as cruelty. This leads to blanket defenses rather than principled distinctions.
Second, donor and industry pressure. Fertility clinics and biotech firms have learned to market IVF as family-friendly healthcare. Republicans often lack the policy literacy—or the will—to challenge the narrative.
Third, incomplete moral synthesis. Republicans oppose abortion but often fail to connect embryo destruction in IVF to the same moral framework. This inconsistency creates rhetorical vulnerability.
Tone-deaf Republican statements defending IVF “without limits” reveal not strategy so much as moral underdevelopment on this issue.
Democrats advance IVF and surrogacy as ideological infrastructure. Republicans defend them out of fear and confusion. Neither party, as a whole, centers the child as the primary moral subject.
High-Trust vs. Low-Trust Societies and Reproductive Policy
High-trust societies assume shared moral norms. Low-trust societies rely on contracts, enforcement, and litigation.
Surrogacy and IVF flourish in low-trust environments because they depend on:
- Legal enforcement of intent
- Contractual transfer of parental rights
- Bureaucratic mediation of family formation
As trust declines, natural institutions are replaced by legal abstractions.
Republicans increasingly suspect Democrats intend to use reproductive policy to reshape family norms permanently, not merely accommodate exceptions. Democrats deny this—but the consistency of their actions provides reasonable grounds for concern.
When trust erodes, even compassion-driven policies are interpreted as power plays.
Media Distortion and Narrative Control
Mainstream media routinely distort this issue in predictable ways.
Republican objections are framed as:
- Anti-science
- Anti-family
- Theocratic
Democrat advocacy is framed as:
- Compassionate
- Inclusive
- Evidence-based
Rarely are embryo destruction, donor anonymity, or child identity discussed. Journalistic silence functions as ideological shielding, not neutrality.
The Biblical Perspective on IVF and Surrogacy
The biblical worldview begins with biblical anthropology: human beings are made in the image of God from conception (Psalm 139; Genesis 1:26–27).
Children are gifts, not entitlements (Psalm 127:3). Technology is morally subordinate to creation order, not sovereign over it.
Scripture affirms:
- The moral significance of biological parenthood
- The inseparability of procreation from embodied reality
- The protection of the vulnerable over the desires of the powerful
The Bible does not address IVF directly—but it addresses every principle involved.
Biblical Christians therefore reject systems that:
- Intentionally destroy embryonic life
- Plan for the separation of children from their parents
- Treat reproduction as a service industry
- Redefine parenthood by contract
On balance, biblical Christians align most closely with Republicans—not because Republicans are consistently right, but because the Republican Party allows moral dissent and biblical participation within its ranks.
Voting with Moral Weight
Christians are called to weigh issues rightly. Abortion carries greater moral gravity than tax policy. Surrogacy and IVF, while distinct, belong to the same moral category because they involve human life at its earliest stage.
Christians should vote for candidates who:
- Recognize moral limits
- Allow space for biblical conviction
- Resist Progressive coercion
Scripture affirms responsible judgment in civic life (Proverbs 14:34; Micah 6:8).
Seeking the Welfare of the Nation
Christians are commanded to seek the good of their nation (Jeremiah 29:7).
Voting is one means. Others include:
- Public advocacy
- Church teaching
- Supporting ethical alternatives
- Prayer for leaders (1 Timothy 2:1–2)
Some believers abstain from voting as a matter of conscience (Romans 14). This liberty must be respected.
Conclusion
What generalizations can we make about the Republican, Democrat, Libertarian, and Biblical Christianity views on surrogacy and IVF?
- Republicans: Morally inconsistent but open to reform
- Democrats: Ideologically unified but hostile to moral limits
- Libertarians: Contract-focused, child-blind
- Biblical Christianity: Constrained, child-centered, morally coherent
Surrogacy and IVF are not marginal issues. They reveal what a society believes about human life itself.
S.D.G.,
Robert Sparkman
MMXXV
rob@christiannewsjunkie.com
RELATED CONTENT
Party platforms
If you want to read the party platforms yourself, here are the links:
Republican Party 2024 Platform
Glossary of Key Terms
Assisted Reproductive Technology (ART)
Medical procedures used to achieve pregnancy, including IVF and related techniques.
In Vitro Fertilization (IVF)
A process in which human embryos are created outside the body, often in large numbers, with only a fraction implanted.
Embryo Destruction
The discarding, thawing, or experimental use of unused embryos—an unavoidable feature of most IVF protocols.
Gestational Surrogacy
An arrangement in which a woman carries a child genetically unrelated to her, typically under contract.
Commercial Surrogacy
Surrogacy involving financial compensation beyond medical expenses.
Donor Conception
The use of sperm or eggs from third parties, intentionally severing biological parenthood.
Commodification
Treating human beings or human capacities as market goods.
Constrained Vision
A worldview recognizing human limits, moral tradeoffs, and the need for restraint.
Unconstrained Vision
A worldview assuming problems can be solved through expertise, planning, and technology.
Progressivism
A modern ideological framework emphasizing equality of outcomes, identity politics, and moral relativism in the name of social justice.
Videos on the topic
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If I have listed the content, I think it is worthwhile viewing to educate yourself on the topic, but it may contain coarse language or some opinions I don’t agree with.
I use words that reflect the “woke” culture and their re-definitions sometimes. It is hard to communicate effectively without using their twisted vocabulary. Rest assured that I do not believe gender ideology or “Progressivism”. Words and phrases like “trans man”, “trans women” , “transgender”, “transition” or similar words and phrases are nonsensical and reflect a distorted, imaginary worldview where men can become women and vice-versa. The word “Progressive” itself is a propagandistic word that implies the Progressives are the positive force in society, whereas in reality their cultic belief system is very corrosive to mankind.
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