Katie Breckenridge is operations administrator and contributing writer for the children’s rights organization Them Before Us. She holds a master’s degree in mental health and wellness with an emphasis in family dynamics, a graduate certificate in trauma-informed practice, and is working towards a second masters in bioethics….

 

The reproductive industry commodifies and destroys embryonic human beings while denying children the natural right to a mother and father.

Author Katie Breckenridge profileThe Michigan House passed the Assisted Reproduction and Surrogacy Parentage Act, HBs 5207-5215, on Nov. 9, 2023. These bills seek to legalize surrogacy, which is still a misdemeanor in Michigan, and establish parentage rights for children born through reproductive technologies.

Proponents of these bills argue that children will no longer be vulnerable, as no intended parents will be “forced” to go out of state to pursue surrogacy anymore, nor will they have to go through the process of adopting their surrogate-born child. In actuality, it is the IVF and surrogacy processes themselves that leave children the most vulnerable. The frustration that comes from being “forced” to go out of state or adopt a child from a woman who has been used as one’s personal incubator (since women who gestate children are, in reality, their mothers), does not actually stem from the desire to relieve vulnerability from children, but rather, the desire to achieve parenthood no matter the cost to children. …