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PaperclipPerfector  1mo ago (text post)   25627 thread views

Culture War Roundup for the week of September 7, 2026

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Seems to me like the contract was insufficiently specified. If the couple wants to abort but the surrogate refuses, then there is a solution that the surrogate takes on full financial responsibility for the child and the couple forfeits their claim of parenthood. Good for the state of Texas for putting its money where its mouth is on preventing abortion.

State interests is far too strong to allow this. There is zero reason I am unrelated third party should have to pay for the kid. Which would generally happen because the person carrying the child is generally poor and renting out their body for 9 months.

the surrogate takes on full financial responsibility for the child

Long ago I read about a case of DIY sperm donation from a guy who knew two lesbians for them to have children, with a contract stating the man held no financial responsibility. Later he gets hit with child support. The laws regarding child support cannot be negated by a private contract. This guy practically wrote down "laws don't apply to me" and signed it with a couple lesbians.

Users on Reddit generally agree that informal home donations carry severe legal risks because private contracts often fail to override state welfare recovery laws without medical oversight.

Uh, thanks Google search AI. I was hoping for the opinions of Reddit regarding this. Other more relevant search results showed state governments going after some hapless guy for child support.

Anyways, this could work but we'd need a legal framework allowing it.

William Marotta is the case you're thinking of, and apparently on appeal the court ruled in his favor.

I have my doubts about whether most states would enforce a contract with regard to parental rights, which usually involve another court, or even with regard to child support. And this case explicitly involves traveling to another jurisdiction for the protection of its laws, which further complicates things.

I'd rather have the responsibility fall to the agency than the surrogate, but that's just details.

In normal cases, the law recognizes the rights of a pregnant woman over both her own body and the fetus. Whoever provided the gametes gets basically nothing. A narrow exception feels wrong, and that should either be changed in general or not at all.

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