Sponsors (3)
Voids surrogacy agreements involving prospective parents from designated foreign entities of concern, criminalizes brokers who facilitate them, and sends custody disputes to state courts to decide by best interests.
The bill prioritizes preventing cross-border exploitation and increasing enforcement clarity in surrogacy at the cost of disrupting some lawful compensated surrogacy arrangements, creating legal uncertainty for certain intended parents and potential income and safety trade-offs for U.S. surrogates.
Women and children are less likely to be subject to exploitative or trafficked international surrogacy arrangements because brokers who facilitate illicit cross-border surrogacy are criminalized and courts are barred from enforcing exploitative contracts.
U.S. prospective parents (citizens and lawful residents) gain clearer legal definitions for surrogacy relationships and for who counts as a 'surrogacy broker,' improving oversight, reducing fraud, and making enforcement more predictable.
U.S. citizens and lawful permanent residents who are legally married to a U.S. spouse keep enforceable surrogacy agreements, preserving parental rights for those families.
U.S. surrogate mothers and other low-income Americans who rely on compensated surrogacy stand to lose lawful income and payment protections as many cross-border or foreign-linked agreements become void or harder to enforce.
Intended parents (particularly from countries on the designated list) and children face substantial legal uncertainty and risk of losing predictable parental recognition, custody, or citizenship when surrogacy agreements are voided or presumptions strip parental claims.
Criminal penalties and stricter rules for brokers could push arrangements underground, chill legitimate brokerage and facilitation, and thereby increase health and safety risks for surrogates and infants while making oversight and monitoring harder.
Based on analysis of 6 sections of legislative text.
Official title: Prevent citizens of foreign adversarial nations from entering into or enforcing surrogacy contracts in the United States.
Introduced November 4, 2025 by Richard Lynn Scott · Last progress November 4, 2025
Voids and criminalizes certain commercial surrogacy arrangements when the intended parent(s) are citizens or lawful permanent residents of a country designated as a "foreign entity of concern." The bill defines covered terms, makes such surrogacy agreements unenforceable (with a narrow married-U.S.-parent exception), creates a federal crime for brokers who knowingly or recklessly facilitate those void agreements, and directs state courts to decide custody by the child’s best interests when a birth occurs under a voided agreement.