It’s impossible to stress enough how much the abandoning of biblical authority—and thus the absolute morality of the Christian worldview—has impacted our society, hurting the most vulnerable (women and children). And a new bill that unanimously (keep that in mind—unanimously) passed the Massachusetts house just highlights another layer of the brokenness that comes from leaving behind God’s design for marriage, gender, and sexuality.
Consider this headline: “Mass. House unanimously approves Parentage Equality Bill”
Now, such a headline looks good on the face of it—who wouldn’t want “parentage equality”? The Boston Globe describes the bill this way:
[This bill] will fix “archaic” sections of state law that can make it difficult for LGBTQ families and those who use alternative methods of reproduction, like in vitro fertilization, to establish legal parenthood.
Apparently, this bill is designed to make it easier for LGBTQ couples specifically (but they say it impacts everyone) to establish “parentage rights” so that a non-biological parent can be considered the parent of a child without having to go through the formal adoption process.
“Keep[ing] pace with the changes that are occurring in society,” as one House Speaker put it, continues to degrade God’s design for the family, but it gets worse than simply making it easier for LGBTQ couples to have children (which purposely deprives a child of either a mother or a father). According to The Federalist, this bill will have some other very serious consequences—allowing a mother to legally sell her child.
This bill redefines parenthood as a “person’s intent to be a parent of a child” (notice the gender-neutral language—no mothers or fathers). That is bad enough—God’s design is for a child to have a mother and a father (who are married to each other), not for a child to have “parents,” defined as whoever wants to be the child’s parent! But it gets worse.
The bill allows for commercial surrogacy of a woman’s own biological child. Usually, a surrogate is not carrying her own baby; the egg is provided by another woman (either purchased by the couple or provided by the “intended mother”), fertilized outside the womb, and then transferred to the surrogate’s womb. This new bill allows the woman to offer her own offspring to someone else and receive compensation for it (and, reportedly, she can even draw up and accept a surrogacy agreement after the child is already conceived). It’s not hard to imagine the abuses that can and will take place if a woman can sell her own child. Traffickers certainly won’t hesitate to use this new bill to sell precious newborns to eager couples!
Here’s how The Federalist explains this:
Under H. 4672, the following would be perfectly legal: a woman undergoes the physical and mental health screenings required to become a surrogate, becomes pregnant via sperm from a sperm bank, and then posts to a surrogacy forum or social media group that she is not only available as a surrogate but already pregnant.
She could then choose to “match” with the couple willing to pay the highest “payment of consideration,” essentially auctioning off her child. As long as the surrogacy agreement meets the requirements outlined in the bill, it could be validated by a court and viewed as not only permissible but legally binding.
Children are not a commodity to be bought and sold at the whim of adults. Children are precious image bearers of God, given by him to their parents to be treasured and raised in the fear and admonition of the Lord. Commercial surrogacy turns that on its head, purposefully separating a child from his or her biological mother or father (the egg or sperm “donor”) and the child’s gestational mother—and with this new bill, that biological and gestational mother might be the same person.
These kinds of bills highlight the dangers of doing something just because we can without stopping to consider if we should. We need God’s Word and its eternal truths to provide the standard for right and wrong. It’s the biblical worldview that protects women and children from exploitation and from being seen as nothing more than a commodity for sale.
This is all an attack on the family, the first and most fundamental of all human institutions God ordained in Scripture. The family is the backbone of the nation. The family is the educational unit God uses to transfer a spiritual legacy from one generation to the next and to impact the world for God. No wonder the devil hates the family and will do all he can to destroy it.
