Baton Rouge, LA.-Today, March 25th, the House Civil Law and Procedure Committee adopted overwhelmingly the pro-life amendments to HB 187.  As the bill stands now, contracts to govern "altruistic" surrogacy will be possible, but commercial surrogacy and forced abortion will be prohibited.

The pro-life amendments added to HB187 will ensure the following:   

• Women can not be paid to be surrogates, including with nebulous "reasonable living expenses".  This prevents surrogacy from being commercialized, and ensure that the surrogacy industry will not set up shop in Louisiana.    
• If anyone contracts, assists in, advertises for a surrogacy contract not in compliance with the legislation will be guilty of sale of a minor child, subject to $50,000 fine and/or ten years in prison.     
• No mother who offers altruistically to be a surrogate can be pressured to abort her unborn child for any reason by the genetic parents.  This includes reasons related to prenatal diagnosis of a potential or actual disability, impairment, genetic variation, or any other health concern, gender discrimination or for the purposes of reducing number of fetuses.

Ryan Verret, Assistant Director of Louisiana Right to Life, said the following about the legislation:

"While our concerns about surrogacy in general remain, pro-life amendments have been added to HB 187 that address a number of our concerns, including the commodification of pregnancy and selective abortion.  Thanks to our grassroots pro-life citizens across Louisiana who took time to contact their legislators, our voices have been heard.

Now, as the bill heads to the House floor and eventually to the Senate, Louisiana Right to Life will work to make sure the amendments remain. We appreciate Rep. Lopinto, the author of the legislation, for being willing to dialogue on this issue."

###