House Republicans are pushing new legislation they say is aimed at tightening rules around surrogacy arrangements, arguing that existing laws create uneven safeguards compared to adoption and leave key areas of the system without consistent oversight.
Rep. Scott Perry (R-PA) introduced two bills Thursday—the “Protecting Kids from Creeps Act” and the “Preventing International Surrogacy Exploitation Act”—that would impose new restrictions on surrogacy agreements and establish penalties for agencies that fail to comply.
One measure would bar surrogacy agencies from working with registered sex offenders, while the other would prohibit foreign nationals from using U.S.-based surrogacy services to obtain children.
Perry said current federal law creates a divide between adoption and surrogacy standards, noting that while sex offenders are generally prohibited from adopting children, those restrictions do not extend in the same way to surrogacy arrangements, where intended parents are often recognized as legal parents at birth.
He also argued that surrogacy lacks uniform screening requirements across states, unlike the more standardized checks typically required in adoption cases.
“There is a lack of legal guardrails in many states that allow sex offenders to obtain, legally, children via surrogacy, regardless of their criminal history,” Perry said. “Without reform, babies and children are in danger of abuse, exploitation, trafficking, and all the worst things and horrific things you can think of.”
The international component of the legislation focuses on cross-border surrogacy arrangements involving foreign nationals using U.S. services, which Perry and supporters say raise concerns tied to immigration enforcement and the commercialization of child-bearing arrangements.
Perry pointed to examples he believes illustrate how the system can be exploited, including allegations involving Chinese executive Wang Huiwu and a separate case tied to a California surrogacy agency allegedly connected to large-scale requests for children.
He also cited countries that have moved to restrict or ban international commercial surrogacy entirely, arguing that the United States risks becoming an outlier if it does not adopt clearer federal standards governing who can access such services and under what conditions, according to the Washington Times.
The bills have drawn support from Reps. Randy Fine (R-FL) and Tim Burchett (R-TN), who have echoed the need for stricter rules around surrogacy eligibility and oversight.
Fine described surrogacy in moral terms as a “holy procedure,” while Burchett emphasized that lawmakers should prioritize protecting children and said the issue should not be politically divisive, according to Just the News.
“Our children are our future, they deserve to be protected,” Burchett said. “This is the type of bill—there ought to be very little discussion.”
Beyond the legislative details, the push reflects a broader Republican effort to place surrogacy within a wider policy framework that also includes adoption standards, reproductive ethics, and parental rights debates.
Surrogacy sits at the intersection of family law, immigration policy, and reproductive technology, and GOP lawmakers are increasingly treating it as part of a larger push to define federal boundaries around modern family formation and eligibility for parenthood.
The House Judiciary Committee stage will test whether the GOP’s framing of surrogacy as a child-protection issue can translate into enforceable federal policy in a fragmented regulatory landscape.
That review is likely to center on jurisdictional questions and the practical challenges of applying uniform standards to a rapidly expanding and unevenly regulated industry.
