The buying and selling of human babies has gone unnoticed by federal policymakers for too long, but that may soon change. In the past three months, the subject has generated several stories that reveal an alarming level of political neglect. It was discovered that a man on the sex offender registry purchased a baby in Pennsylvania, two children bought through surrogacy were discovered in a cage in San Francisco, and 21 other children bought through surrogacy were found in just one home in Los Angeles after doctors called police because a baby was taken to the emergency room with intracranial bleeding.

Proponents of Big Surrogacy argue that it is no different and equally beneficial as adoption. This could not be more wrong. Adoption meets some of the needs of children who have already been born, who, for whatever sad reason, are separated from their mothers. Surrogacy is about creating babies to meet the desires of adults. These desires require the separation of mother and child, which in all other circumstances is understood to be something best prevented for the good of the child, the mother, and society in general. Recent surrogacy horror stories are not aberrations in an otherwise benevolent industry; they are the logical conclusion of the commodification of human beings.