New bill could bar sex offenders from surrogacy by closing loopholes

Legislators are looking to close loopholes which currently allow sex offenders to have children through surrogacy.

Key Takeaways:

• Nationwide controversy erupted after a registered sex offender in Pennsylvania was able to gain access to a child through surrogacy.

• Pennsylvania law bars sex offenders from adopting children, but there are no such regulations regarding the fertility industry.

• A new bill has been introduced which would give significant penalties to surrogacy agencies which allow sex offenders to obtain children.

The Backstory:

Last year, it was discovered that Brandon Keith Riley-Mitchell had, along with his partner Logan Riley, been able to obtain a child through surrogacy, despite being a Tier 1 registered sex offender. The two men launched a GoFundMe page in 2023 to raise money for a surrogate to carry a child for them; once they had gained enough money, they used a donor egg and a separate surrogate mother, meaning the surrogate was not biologically related to the child.

They eventually created four embryos, and at least one of the embryos was implanted into the surrogate's womb. She later gave birth to a little boy, which the same-sex couple then claimed as their own.

A video the men shared of their first year with the boy went viral, and Riley-Mitchell's background as a sex offender was discovered. It immediately caused widespread outrage.

While he was a teacher, Riley-Mitchell sexually propositioned an underage student; the Megan’s Law site for the state of Pennsylvania confirmed Mitchell’s status as a Tier 1 sex offender. He had been convicted for child sexual abuse and possession of child sexual abuse materials.

Prosecutors found over 12,000 text messages between Riley-Mitchell and his victim:

The messages – sent on a non-school-issued cellphone and personal laptop – began in May 2013 when the boy was just 16 years old. The conversations turned sexual in the summer of 2013 and, according to the criminal complaint, included messages from Mitchell that read, “you can give me a bj after you graduate” and “Do you have naked pictures [of] yourself on your phone?”

… Besides sexual messages, Mitchell and the boy also exchanged nude photographs, including more than a dozen of Mitchell’s penis, according to investigators. The boy sent a sexually explicit video to Mitchell, who allegedly told the boy he wanted to see him masturbate, said police.

The conversations ended in December 2014, police said.

The surrogacy agency did not perform a background check on Riley-Mitchell, nor did he disclose his criminal history. A new state bill is looking to keep something like that from happening ever again.

The Details:

Rep. Scott Perry (R-Pa.) introduced two bills with the goal of regulating surrogacy. HR 9131, or the "Protecting Kids From Creeps Act," would impose heavy penalties on surrogacy agencies for failing to perform background checks on their clients; HR 9132, or the “Preventing International Surrogacy Exploitation Act,” would bar foreign nationals from obtaining children through U.S.-based surrogacy arrangements, essentially ending birth tourism.

Perry, who represents the state of Pennsylvania, said most states have no regulation protecting children born through surrogacy; even if there is a state with a law in place, the would-be parent could just go to the next state over to obtain a child.

"These bills put children first (which should always be the case, and some seem to be forgetting that), and help prevent predators/foreign actors from obtaining children in our Nation for personal gain, profit, or other nefarious reasons," Perry wrote on X.

The bills are co-sponsored by Representatives Randy Fine and Tim Burchett.

In a statement, the Center for Bioethics and Culture Network (CBCN) applauded the bills:

The idea that the legal system must explicitly prohibit sex offenders from accessing children through surrogacy highlights a deeper structural failure: assumptions about safety and eligibility in assisted reproduction have not been adequately codified into law.

The fact that Congress is now advancing legislation to explicitly bar sex offenders from accessing children through surrogacy underscores a fundamental truth: reproductive technology has advanced far faster than the legal frameworks meant to govern it.

Under the legislation, surrogacy agencies which fail to perform background checks could lose federal funding, while employees responsible could face up to 20 years in prison.

Why It Matters:

There is virtually no regulation on the fertility industry, which allows a considerable of abuse to happen. Riley-Mitchell is not the first person to obtain access to children despite sex-related criminal offenses. But this is not the only issue.

Sperm donation has no limits in the United States, meaning men can donate as often as they want to, sometimes leading to children with hundreds — if not thousands — of siblings. There are no efforts in the United States to curb serial sperm donors, or to ensure that children born through assisted reproductive technology (ART) can know where they came from, who their biological parents are, their medical histories, or their heritage.

There is also little attention given to how assisted reproductive technologies affect the children born as a result. The priority is on the adults who want children, rather than on the children themselves, and as such, any attempt to regulate the fertility industry is quickly shouted down as heartless, insensitive, and cruel. The reaction from adults born through the fertility industry does not seem to matter.

One Harvard Medical School study, for example, found that 62% of children conceived through donor technologies believe it to be unethical and immoral — but their concerns are rarely acknowledged, let alone acted upon.

“I am a human being, yet I was conceived with a technique that had its origins in animal husbandry,” one donor-conceived person wrote in a book for Anonymous Us. “Worst of all, farmers kept better records of their cattle’s genealogy than assisted reproductive clinics … how could the doctors, sworn to ‘first do no harm’ create a system where I now face the pain and loss of my own identity and heritage.”

And yet these practices persist, with adults' desires prioritized over children's needs.

The Bottom Line:

Legislation like this is sorely needed, but it should only be the beginning of regulating and reigning in the profitable and haphazard fertility industry.