In recent months, there has been no shortage of horror stories illustrating just how dangerous the surrogacy industry is for children. From same-sex couples with children charged with rape and sexual abuse to Chinese billionaires mail-ordering tiny U.S. citizens, the tragedies stack up as surrogacy use proliferates. Now a new pair of bills seeks to close the loopholes that enable the surrogacy industry and its abuse of both children and immigration laws.
Rep. Scott Perry, R-Penn., held a press conference with Rep. Tim Burchett, R-Tenn., and Rep. Randy Fine, R-Fla., on June 4 to introduce the Protecting Kids from Creeps Act and the Preventing International Surrogacy Exploitation Act. The bills, Perry said, aim to “put children first” and “help prevent predators / foreign actors from obtaining children in our Nation for personal gain, profit, or other nefarious reasons.”
Perry created the Protecting Kids from Creeps Act to “crack down on surrogacy agencies providing babies to sex offenders.” Perry was inspired to make this bill after a homosexual couple from his state, Logan Riley and Tier 1 sex offender Brandon Mitchell, purchased a baby boy via surrogacy, he said in the press conference.
Riley and Mitchell started crowdfunding for a surrogate on GoFundMe in 2020, and by 2025, they had obtained a child through IVF. Less than 10 years prior, however, Mitchell had pleaded guilty to “several criminal charges for attempting to solicit images from a male teenage student,” as The Federalist reported. Investigation by law enforcement revealed more than 12,000 texts and explicit pictures between the former high school chemistry teacher and the child. Mitchell was sentenced to about two years in prison but released on parole after only two months.
But under the Protecting Kids from Creeps Act, children will be “protected from pedophiles and predators,” Perry said at the press conference.
A recent story from May further exposes the need for this law. Barrie Drewitt-Barlow, who obtained eight children via surrogacy, was charged with multiple counts of human trafficking, rape, and sexual assault. In 1999 Drewitt-Barlow and his then-partner Tony “became known as Britain’s first gay fathers, having become parents through a surrogate mother,” according to the BBC.
Drewitt-Barlow purchased five children via surrogates with his first partner and three with his current partner, Scott Hutchinson. Hutchinson, who is 25 years younger than Drewitt-Barlow, was reported to have dated Drewitt-Barlow’s first daughter obtained via surrogacy, Saffron, before coupling with him. Together, the men “used their celebrity, multi-millionaire status to obtain victims,” Live Action said. According to Live Action, “the case highlights how sex offenders can gain access to children — and potential victims,” since surrogacy organizations rarely screen their clients.
In the same month the charges against Drewitt-Barlow were announced, a same-sex couple with children was arrested on child sex abuse charges in North Carolina. Joshua Lee Gilliam and Ronald Wayne Lynch Jr., purported OnlyFans on-screen prostitutes, claim to have five sons on their X profile, and at least one child may have been obtained through surrogacy.
The North Carolina State Bureau of Investigation received tips through the Internet Crimes Against Children database saying that the couple had child sexual abuse material. Local deputies searched their house and found electronic evidence, leading to both men being charged with first-degree sexual exploitation of a minor. Gilliam is also charged with first-degree statutory sexual offence and indecent liberties with a minor, but it is not yet known if “his children” are among the victims.
Perry’s bill would protect children from child abusers by requiring surrogacy agencies to screen customers and conduct background checks. Any employees who willfully connected a predator with a surrogate would face a minimum of 20 years in federal prison. Any sex offender who tried to obtain a child via surrogacy would also face 20 years’ imprisonment. Leadership at negligent agencies would garner 10 years in prison and be barred from receiving federal grant money for violating the law.
Perry created the second bill, the Preventing International Surrogacy Exploitation Act, after hearing stories of wealthy Chinese foreigners paying for surrogacy in the U.S. to obtain children with American citizenship who are loyal to China. “Birth tourism — it’s a national security threat [that] invites immigration fraud and malfeasance, and most importantly, it is a ethical, moral imperative … because we are allowing, if not facilitating, child endangerment,” he said.
Last year, a Chinese man named Xu Bo became famous for reportedly “fathering” hundreds of children through surrogacy clinics. At least 100 children came from U.S. surrogacy clinics, his company claimed. Another Chinese businessman, Wang Huiwu, reportedly created 10 daughters through U.S. surrogates “with the stated intention of arranging influential marriages in the future,” News 18 reported.
Many countries, including China, already ban “international commercial surrogacy for the same reasons it needs to be banned in the United States of America,” Perry said, adding that “these unrestricted surrogacies allow for foreign nationals, including those adversarial to the United States, to obtain their citizenship through surrogacy of their children.”
The Preventing International Surrogacy Exploitation Act will create criminal and civil penalties and “void any surrogacy contract between an American surrogate and a foreign national prospective parent and impose up to 10 years in prison on brokers who facilitate such agreements,” The Blaze reported.
Perry said he created these bills because “children are not pets; children are not property.”
