Sen. Rick Scott Introduces SAFE KIDS Act to Stop Foreign Adversaries from Exploiting U.S. Surrogacy Laws

WASHINGTON, D.C. - Today, Senator Rick Scott announced the introduction of the Stopping Adversarial Foreign Exploitation of Kids in Domestic Surrogacy (SAFE KIDS) Act to prevent adversarial nations, including Communist China, from using American surrogates to obtain U.S. citizenship for their children and traffic infants abroad. The bill is the first of its kind in curbing this practice and establishing accountability for third parties who facilitate commercial surrogacy contracts with foreign adversaries. This legislation follows terrifying reporting on the abuse of newborns, as well as U.S. surrogate mothers who were deceived into giving birth to children for foreign nationals.

Senator Rick Scott said, "America's surrogacy system is meant to help individuals build families - it should never be the avenue to allow abuse, neglect, or deceit of innocent women and babies. And it's terrifying that this might be at the hands of foreign adversaries with the sole intent of having a child that is a U.S. citizen. We've already seen troubling cases of human trafficking and abuse linked to international surrogacy schemes, as our foreign adversaries prove willing to exploit every loophole they can to destroy us. We must take action. My SAFE KIDS Act puts a stop to China and other foreign adversaries' efforts to harm children, women, and our national security."

International commercial surrogacy raises serious national-security and human-trafficking concerns, but there are no U.S. laws on the books to address these concerns. The SAFE KIDS Act addresses gaps in U.S. surrogacy law by:

• Invalidating any commercial surrogacy agreement that is entered into with a citizen of a foreign adversarial nation; and
• Creating a misdemeanor for brokers-not surrogates-who knowingly or recklessly facilitate a prohibited commercial surrogacy agreement with citizens from a foreign adversarial nation.

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