Critics say Delaware surrogacy bill erodes child welfare safeguards 

Delaware is considering expanding its surrogacy legislation, a contentious move that is igniting concern among pro-life advocates and legal specialists who caution that the initiative could erode longstanding safeguards meant to protect women and children.

Key Takeaways:

• The new bill would broaden existing surrogacy regulations, allowing paid genetic surrogacy.

• Genetic surrogacy is the term used to describe a situation in which the surrogate mother is actually the biological mother of the preborn child.

• Currently, Delaware law only allows gestational surrogacy, in which there is no biological link between surrogate mother and preborn child.

• Legalizing genetic surrogacy would essentially allow a woman to conceive her own biological child and then sell that child to another individual.

The Details:

Introduced in early March of this year, Senate Bill 250 hopes to incorporate elements of the 2017 Uniform Parentage Act while broadening Delaware’s laws on surrogacy. It would permit paid “genetic surrogacy,” enabling a woman to be compensated for conceiving and carrying a child genetically related to her, then relinquishing parental rights to intended parents.

Delaware currently allows gestational surrogacy, in which the surrogate has no biological link to the child. The proposed initiative would widen this framework, raising questions about how the law should deal with surrogacy dynamics that involve a genetic relationship.

Sen. Marie Pinkney, the bill’s lead sponsor, said that the proposal is designed to update Delaware’s legal system, and offer families with more options on how to proceed with their surrogacy plans. 

The lawmaker added that SB 250 revises the state’s parentage laws by including the 2017 Uniform Parentage Act, with the stated goal of ensuring every child has a clearly delineated and secure legal relationship with their parents. 

The legislation also seeks to:

• replace provisions deemed as obsolete

• guarantee equal “recognition” for LGBTQ+ families

• boost safeguards for children born through assisted reproduction or surrogacy

• outline the criteria for establishing de facto parenthood

Pinkney claimed that the measure brings Delaware in line with nationwide standards and promotes a more uniform and predictable legal structure for families.

Based on the bill’s text and assessments by advocacy organizations, SB 250 would outline legally binding agreements between intended parents and surrogates, detailing payment arrangements as well as parental rights.

Delaware has a track record of highlighting child welfare standards, including meticulous examination in adoption and custody cases. SB 250 would be a departure from that historical tradition, emphasizing contractual intent instead of post-birth evaluations of a child’s best interests. 

A recent op-ed by Josh Wood of Them Before Us published at The Daily Signal highlights the real-life scenarios playing out, proving that bills like SB 250 are a clear danger to children:

Nine states have adopted some version of the 2017 act so far. Pennsylvania had a version pending until legislators dropped the bill last year after a surrogacy scandal exposed how the language created new opportunities for exploitation. Delaware’s bill adopts the same framework Pennsylvania abandoned....

The existing gestational surrogacy framework already lacks the vetting that adoption requires, and the results are on record.

In March 2024, the FBI arrested Adam Stafford King, a Chicago veterinarian, days before he was scheduled to collect his son from a California surrogate. King had been distributing child sexual abuse material on Telegram, had admitted to drugging and sexually abusing his nieces and nephews, and had explicitly discussed his plans to abuse the newborn after taking custody.

No background check had ever been conducted.  

In May 2025, authorities in Arcadia, California, found 21 surrogate-born children (17 of them 3 years old or younger) in a single mansion, commissioned by a couple running a fraudulent surrogacy agency who told each surrogate she was helping a small family with infertility; surveillance footage showed nannies slapping and shaking infants.

Each one of these children would have been protected by the screening that adoption requires. None were protected by surrogacy law....  

Why It Matters:

The practice of surrogacy detaches procreation from the marital relationship, and brings in third-party involvement that can muddle a child’s sense of identity and belonging. There are other issues to consider, as well:

• Inter-state, or even international, arrangements that may capitalize on legal gaps.

• Surrogacy arrangements often direct the focus away from prioritizing children’s welfare, and toward agreements negotiated between adults.

• Safeguards common in adoption processes, such as screening prospective parents, are not usually part of surrogacy arrangements.

• Surrogacy has been deemed "violence against women and children" by Reem Alsalem, the United Nations (UN) Special Rapporteur on Violence Against Women, who stated that the practice is "characterized by exploitation and violence against women and children, including girls" and "reinforces patriarchal norms by commodifying and objectifying women’s bodies and exposing surrogate mothers and children to serious human rights violations.”

Nandi Gamble of the Delaware Family Policy Council denounced the proposal, criticizing the focus on adult-centered contracts at the expense of child-centered protections. 

“The best interest of the child is ignored for the sake of an adult-centered framework, where the desires of the adults are fulfilled through enforceable contracts,” Gamble wrote.

Many argue that contract surrogacy is, in reality, the buying and selling of children.

Meanwhile, legislators are contemplating additional family law measures, such as Senate Bill 236, which would grant people conceived through donor arrangements the ability to obtain identifying details about their biological parents once they turn 18.

The debate over SB 250 mirrors a larger national conversation about how various states manage assisted reproductive technologies. Although some jurisdictions have been inclined towards looser legal structures, others have kept a tight grip on monitoring such technologies in the interest of protecting children from exploitation. 

The Bottom Line:

Whether SB 250 ultimately passes or is amended further, it demonstrates that lawmakers must balance the urge to support diverse family structures against the need to maintain protections that have long been considered crucial to children’s welfare.

Surrogacy is inherently wrong, as every child deserves to be treated as a person with dignity, not as the subject of a contractual agreement.