BATON ROUGE, La. — Louisiana Gov. Bobby Jindal, a Republican, vetoed a bill June 20 after state and national pro-life bioethics organizations expressed grave concerns about the legislation of gestational surrogacy. The measure’s contracts could commercialize surrogacy by allowing “reasonable compensation” to women who carry babies to term for a couple or another person, he said.
Southern Baptist ethicist Russell D. Moore commended Jindal for his decision. “Surrogacy for hire is bad for children and bad for women,” said Moore, president of the Ethics & Religious Liberty Commission. “The womb is not a commercial commodity to be traded in the marketplace, and children are blessings, not consumer items. Surrogacy bypasses the one-flesh union and exploits women’s bodies and children’s lives.”
Gestational surrogacy — in which an embryo created by in vitro fertilization is implanted in a woman who has no relation to the child but has agreed to endure the pregnancy and give birth — has become increasingly popular. No federal regulation of surrogacy exists in the United States.
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