Rep. Andy Ogles has introduced a bill that would ban forced abortion in surrogacy.

Key Takeaways:

• The Preventing Forced Abortions Act of 2026 would bar federal courts from enforcing surrogacy contracts that include requirements for the surrogate to get an abortion.

• It also bars intended parents from refusing to pay a surrogate if she refuses to have an abortion.

• Forced abortion in surrogacy is an ongoing problem in the fertility industry.

The Details:

Ogles announced the new bill in a press release, with Lauren Boebert, Sheri Biggs, Josh Brecheen, Keith Self, and Rep. Mary Miller serving as co-sponsors. There have been numerous instances of surrogates being pressured or forced into abortions by the intended parents, prompting Ogles to introduce the legislation.

“No woman should ever be forced to murder a child because of a provision buried in a contract,” he said in the press release. “The Preventing Forced Abortions Act ensures that federal courts cannot enforce these coercive clauses or allow intended parents to withhold promised compensation when a surrogate mother chooses life."

The bill had previously been introduced in 2024, but did not pass.

Under the legislation, federal courts would be barred from enforcing surrogacy contracts that include clauses forcing the surrogate to have an abortion if the intended parent wants her to. Additionally, intended parents would still be required to continue paying the surrogate if she refused to have an abortion at their request.

Why It Matters:

At its core, surrogacy commodifies women and children, including when intended parents use forced abortion. Typically, intended parents demand an abortion if the preborn baby is diagnosed with a disability or other health condition, and if the surrogate refuses, a legal battle may be fought over the child's life.

Surrogates are often low-income women, whose bodies are rented by wealthy buyers looking to have a child. The most popular countries from which to obtain surrogates are low-income nations like Ukraine and Georgia, where women — typically already mothers — choose to become surrogates out of desperation, because doing so gives them more money than most people in their countries earn in a year.

Unsurprisingly, this then empowers the buyers to see the surrogate as a product they have purchased, rather than as a human being with agency of her own. This extends to abortion, in which the surrogate is pressured to have an abortion if the child she is carrying is deemed by the buyers to be "defective." Tragically, there are many examples:

• Couple sues surrogate who saved their baby's life by refusing to abort

• Parents try to force surrogate mother to abort their disabled baby

• Surrogate pregnant with triplets threatened with ‘financial ruin’ if she doesn’t abort

• Surrogate mom fights to change law after being ordered to abort baby boy

Surrogacy is also known to carry extra risks for the surrogate and children alike. Surrogate mothers are at higher risk of developing conditions like gestational diabetes, hypertensive disorders of pregnancy, and bleeding complications after birth, regardless of whether the baby they carry is biologically related to them or not. Babies conceived via in vitro fertilization (IVF) are similarly at a higher risk for numerous complications, such as low birth weight and prematurity.

It is also understood that taking babies from their birth mothers, even if they aren’t biologically related, causes trauma.

Surrogacy advocates may argue that the same trauma is created in adoption, but these are inherently different circumstances. Adoption does not intentionally create a child with the purpose of being separated from his or her birth mother, while that is the exact intent with surrogacy. That child may furthermore be robbed of his or her medical history, heritage, and background.

As surrogacy grows in popularity across the globe, the number of shocking horror stories has grown with it, to the point that even the pro-abortion European Union issued a resolution condemning surrogacy. These abuses are only possible because of the underregulation of the fertility industry.