No, Manufacturing Children In A Petri Dish Isn’t A Reproductive Right

Illinois state Rep. Margaret Croke recently introduced House Bill 5779, a bill to legally secure a right “to make autonomous decisions about one’s own reproductive health, including the fundamental right to use or refuse reproductive health care.” This bill seeks to codify an individual right to rent wombs and manufacture children in artificial conditions, as well as to discard or hold in freezers an unlimited number of embryos.

The bill would add to the state’s new law concerning “the fundamental right of an individual who becomes pregnant to continue the pregnancy and give birth to a child, or to have an abortion, and to make autonomous decisions about how to exercise that right.” Croke is also a co-author of a previously introduced bill that would force health insurance companies to subsidize surrogacy and other forms of assisted reproductive technology.

Croke highlighted HB779 in her September newsletter immediately after announcing the birth of her daughter. While welcoming a new child into one’s family is certainly a cause for celebration, it’s hard to ignore the irony of juxtaposing a birth announcement with a bill that would legalize the killing of children.

While bills like this often frame “reproductive health” under the guise of protecting adults’ “human rights,” abortion and reproductive technologies are predicated on the violation of children’s human rights. Such laws violate children’s rights to life, to their mothers and fathers, and to not being diminished to products in the baby market.

Buying and Selling Human Parts and Bodies

It’s fitting to link reproductive technology legislation with abortion legislation, as abortion and reproductive technologies are two sides of the same child-commodifying coin. If sex makes babies, and sexual autonomy is viewed as the ultimate good, then babies are the required sacrifice of sexual freedom.

In both the baby-taking industry and the baby-making industry, children’s rights are subject to adult fulfillment. When pregnancies are unwanted, abortion tells us that children can be forced out of existence even if it violates their right to life.

If children are extremely wanted, reproductive technologies tell us that children can be forced into existence even if it violates their right to life and right to their biological mothers and fathers through gamete donation. In reality, children have rights that need to be respected and protected regardless of whether they are unwanted or greatly wanted.

As stated in the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, “All human beings are born free and equal in dignity and rights.” Treating children as commodities to be designed, purchased, and disposed of when they don’t meet adult “standards” is an affront to their inherent value and worth. If we are all born equal, then we are all equally free.

Eliminating Human Lives

Both the abortion and reproductive technologies industries are multibillion-dollar businesses, profiting from the creation and elimination of millions of human beings. Contrary to what many think, in-vitro fertilization (IVF) is not simply about creating new life; it often involves sacrificing millions of little lives so adults can attempt to have

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