Babies for sale? A recent announcement sparks surrogacy debate among conservatives
On Friday, December 1, Guy Benson posted a picture of a baby with the caption, “some personal news.”
For those who don’t know, Benson is considered by many on the American Right to be a “conservative” political commentator. His X (formerly Twitter) bio lists affiliations like Fox News and Town Hall.
But Benson is also an unrepentant homosexual currently “married” to another man, Adam Wise.
Get Our Latest News for FREE
You shouldn’t need me to tell you that Benson and Wise are incapable of having children themselves — the laws of nature and nature’s God, the One True Creator God of the universe, stand against them in such an endeavor.
This means that this baby, who will now grow up in a home with “two dads,” was secured through surrogacy, a modern practice that involves entering into a business contract for the explicit purpose of purchasing a human child through a “rent-a-womb” arrangement.
The initial reactions to Benson’s post about his “personal news” of now being a “father” brought out a veritable “who’s who” list of American political conservatives congratulating him for this … achievement. Notable names include Jonah Goldberg, Dana Perino, Meghan McCain, and more.
After the initial round of applause, a backlash began. Many American conservatives, particularly Christian conservatives, saw nothing to celebrate. Instead, they (rightly) see someone who claims the label of “conservative” being digitally high-fived for what’s become, in essence, a socially acceptable version of human trafficking (the purchase of a child) and intentionally depriving that child of its natural right to be raised by its biological mother and father.
Allie Beth Stuckey posted on X that “the idea that two dads can replace a mom, or that two moms can replace a dad, is just as nonsensical as saying ‘trans women are women.’ The identical illogic behind both is that men and women are arbitrary and interchangeable, that their biology tells us nothing important about how society should function.”
Sharing her comments, Ryan Helfenbein, executive director of the Standing for Freedom Center, added, “One of the most important things that needs to be said in today’s insane culture. Children need both a mother and a father.”
This entire debate, which has raged on social media for over three days now, raises important questions for conservative Christians. What is the Christian view of surrogacy in general? What should our response be when we see homosexual couples purchasing babies with the explicit intent of denying them both a mother and father? How should political conservatives deal with the painfully evident problem that some (many) within the “conservative movement” are actively subverting the most fundamental conservative building block of society itself — the natural family?
Katy Faust, president of the child advocacy group Them Before Us and author of the book Them Before Us: Why We Need a Global Children’s Rights Movement, published an excellent response, entitled “The Conservative, Pro-Life Case Against Surrogacy.” In it, she provides what she calls a “one-stop shop on how to respond the next time a gay — or straight — conservative you love announces that he has created a motherless child.”
I would commend the entire article. But her thesis, in particular, gets right to the point:
“A conservative position rejects surrogacy based on the self-evident, natural rights of the child, his right to life, to his mother and father, to be born free and not bought and sold. The child is the voiceless party in the arrangement who would never consent to the intentional loss of his or her mother.”
Faust approaches the topic from a biological, common-sense, and natural law perspective. But here are three specifically Christian principles that apply to this issue.
The inherent dignity of human life
The Bible upholds the inherent dignity and value of every human life. It posits that every human being, from conception to natural death, should be treated with respect and dignity. This is grounded in Genesis 1:27-28:
“So God created mankind in his own image, in the image of God he created them; male and female he created them. God blessed them and said to them, ‘Be fruitful and increase in number; fill the earth and subdue it.’”
Surrogacy, on the other hand, by its very nature, commodifies human life. It turns image bearers into “designer products,” reducing a child made in the image of God to an artifact that can be bought and sold at the discretion of those who have the power and means to do so. This is fundamentally at odds with a Christian understanding of human dignity.
God’s good design for the reproduction of His image bearers in His world is through the natural process of pregnancy within the committed, monogamous union of one man and one woman we know as marriage. Surrogacy ignores all of that and instead offers to mankind a chance to “play God” over human life.
The rights of the child
One argument often put forth in favor of surrogacy is that “Consenting adults should be able to do whatever they want.” However, this argument fails to consider the rights of the child. In surrogacy arrangements, the child cannot give consent. The child is brought into existence through a contractual agreement and is then handed over to the “purchasers.” This aspect alone — the premeditated and technologically facilitated production and sale of a baby is a clear violation of the child’s rights before both God and man.
Moreover, true conservatives and Christians recognize that a child has a natural right to both a mother and a father. Surrogacy arrangements, and especially those pursued by homosexual couples, pervert the natural order, depriving the child of the right to know and be raised by his or her biological parents — that is, his or her mother and father.
Men and women, mothers and fathers, are not interchangeable. They never have been and they never will be. Therefore, Christians should rightly see surrogacy for homosexual couples as another example of an unbiblical attack on the binary nature of human biology and sexuality.
Adoption is biblical, surrogacy isn’t
It’s important to contrast surrogacy with adoption. Adoption is a practice that has existed for thousands of years and is designed to place children in loving homes due to circumstances beyond their control. It is a response to a tragedy and seeks to provide the best possible outcome for the child.
While there are real issues in the modern adoption system, adopting children who have been orphaned by tragic and unforeseen circumstances can serve as a wonderful reflection of the Gospel. Galatians 4:4-5 says, “When the fullness of time had come, God sent forth his Son, born of woman, born under the law, to redeem those who were under the law, so that we might receive adoption as sons.”
In contrast, surrogacy, again, involves the intentional act of creating a baby to sell to someone else. It is not a response to a tragedy but rather a deliberate act that commodifies human life. There is no picture of the Gospel to be found anywhere in this act.
Conclusion
From a biblically-informed Christian perspective, surrogacy raises significant ethical and moral concerns. It commodifies human life, violates the rights of the child, and disrupts the natural order of parenthood. As such, Christians should rightly understand surrogacy as fundamentally immoral, unethical, and sinful.
And from a conservative perspective, the truth is that there is nothing “conservative” whatsoever about participating in or celebrating the ongoing destruction and perversion of the natural family. As Daniel Strand, assistant professor of ethics at the Air War College and ethics chair of Air University, so pointedly put it: “A conservatism that gives up on the natural family is a deeply compromised conservatism.”
Christians should reject compromised and Christ-less conservatism — and demand the political movement that we are most closely associated with make a return to Christ-centered foundations. Remember, when it comes to the moral order of society, it’s either Christ or chaos — even on the “Right.”
Originally published at the Standing for Freedom Center.
William Wolfe is a visiting fellow with the Center for Renewing America. He served as a senior official in the Trump administration, both as a deputy assistant secretary of defense at the Pentagon and a director of legislative affairs at the State Department. Prior to his service in the administration, Wolfe worked for Heritage Action for America, and as a congressional staffer for three different members of Congress, including the former Rep. Dave Brat. He has a B.A. in history from Covenant College, and is finishing his Masters of Divinity at The Southern Baptist Theological Seminary.
Follow William on Twitter at @William_E_Wolfe
