FIRST ON THE DAILY SIGNAL—From no-fault divorce to same-sex marriage to assisted reproductive technologies, America is increasingly privileging the desires of adults over children’s rights, according to a nonprofit with a concrete plan to reverse this trend.
The group Them Before Us released a new scorecard Tuesday, first obtained by the Daily Signal, that judges state family policies on how well they prioritize children’s rights.
“Most people can see something is deeply broken as families collapse, birth rates plummet, and kids suffer while society keeps acting shocked by the consequences,” Katy Faust, founder and president of Them Before Us, told the Daily Signal.
“But very few people are offering actual solutions,” she lamented. “This scorecard is groundbreaking because it finally puts real reforms on the table, from confronting the Wild West of assisted reproductive technologies to pushing back on divorce policies that make family instability worse to so-called ‘intent-based’ parentage that places children in vulnerable situations.”
“The real question is: Are we willing to build laws and policies around what is best for children, or around what adults want?” Faust concluded.
Children’s Rights Issues
Them Before Us centers children’s rights in policy, arguing that kids thrive best when raised by their two biological parents.
While parents may not always be able to avoid situations like single parenthood or divorce, these tragedies deprive children of the best environment for success, the group argues.
Assisted reproductive technologies, such as surrogacy and in vitro fertilization, separate children from their biological parents. Surrogacy refers to the process by which a woman carries a child on behalf of other people with an arrangement to give them the child. In genetic surrogacy, the woman’s own egg has been fertilized, while in gestational surrogacy, the woman bears a child with no genetic connection to her. The group cites studies suggesting that separation from the mother increases an infant’s stress and harms sleep quality, and that brief separation from a mother may impact long-term development.
The report warns that surrogacy enables registered sex offenders to gain access to children, and notes that California removed 21 children from a couple who had commissioned them via surrogacy, amid child abuse allegations.
Furthermore, anonymous sperm and egg donation makes it possible that children may never learn their biological parentage.
While infertility traditionally refers to the inability of one man and one woman to conceive a child within a year of intercourse, some LGBTQ+ campaigners have urged insurance companies to redefine infertility to effectively grant same-sex couples and singles a “right” to assisted reproductive technologies.
Them Before Us also cites research suggesting that children fare worse when raised by same-sex partners, rather than opposite-sex married parents.
The Children’s Rights Scoring Criteria
Them Before Us developed scoring criteria around four major issues: parentage, surrogacy, donor conception, and marriage.
The report card considers whether states use gender-neutral language, rather than “mother and father”; it considers whether states allow “intent” as the basis for parenthood, often used in surrogacy; and it asks whether states allow for more than two people to be considered legal “parents.”
Seventeen states have erased the terms “mother” and “father,” 28 states allow intent-based parentage, and 10 states allow more than two parents for one child.
Them Before Us also asked whether states allow surrogacy; whether they allow paid surrogacy contracts; and whether they grant prebirth parentage orders. Only three states ban commercial surrogacy, while 25 states have legalized gestational surrogacy, and 13 states have explicitly legalized commercial genetic surrogacy.
Them Before Us judges states based on whether they ban sperm or egg donor anonymity; whether they limit the frequency by which a man or woman can donate gametes; and whether they redefine infertility and make in vitro fertilization a “right.”
Finally, the group considers whether states retain language defining marriage as between one man and one woman; whether they allow for no-fault divorce and whether they recognize any fault in divorce; whether they require a six-month waiting period before divorce; and whether they require parents to learn about the negative impact on children before a divorce.
These scores amount to a loose policy platform for prioritizing children’s rights.
How Do States Measure Up?
Nebraska scores the highest rating, with an “A-.” The Cornhusker State recognizes natural marriage, refers to mothers and fathers, does not redefine infertility, and requires parental education before divorce. It does not accept fault-based grounds for divorce, however.
Four other states—Indiana, Arizona, Kentucky, and Missouri—earn a “B.”
Washington, D.C., has the worst score, followed by Maine, Washington, Hawaii, and California. The District of Columbia legalized commercial surrogacy in 2017, it allows parentage to be established on the basis of intent in surrogacy, and it redefined infertility to include “a person’s inability to reproduce without medical intervention either as a single individual or with their partner.”
The Victims
While LGBTQ+ activists and others may insist that reproductive technologies, no-fault divorce, and other such policies harm no one, Them Before Us includes testimonials from alleged victims of these policies.
“I lived it as an abandonment,” Olivia, a child of surrogacy, said. “I feel as if I was abandoned by my birth mother … as I was sold. There’s nothing worse than for a child to feel that at one moment in my life I was literally sold for a check.”
“The divorce has shaped every aspect of my life,” Faye, a child of divorce, said. “I struggled to commit and trust in my relationships, fearing I’d be left.”
