I Want To Put A Baby In You: The Curious Case Of Louisiana

Two weeks ago, the Louisiana House Committee on Civil Law and Procedure advanced House Bill 1102. The bill tries to set out a statutory framework permitting surrogacy in the state, but only under very particular conditions.

Specifically, the bill provides that:

• A surrogate cannot be compensated.
• A surrogate must be between the ages of 25 and 35.
• The intended parents must be a man and a woman.
• The embryo must come from the egg and the sperm of the intended parents.

Although the measure was approved by the committee without objection, the bill has since begun to cause a great amount of unhappiness on both sides of the aisle.

The Right.  Some religious conservatives strongly object to surrogacy under any circumstances. In short, they don’t think House Bill 1102 goes far enough in limiting surrogacy. At least one conservative witness testified that she considered surrogacy to be “an experiment on children.” The testimony centered on the objection to separating children from their birth parent—i.e., the surrogate—without understanding the ultimate consequences of such a separation.

Embryos Are Legal...