AUSTIN, Texas \u2014 A Texas Senate committee hearing Wednesday centered on examining the potential exploitation of surrogacy in Texas and was met with mixed responses as women shared personal stories with lawmakers.<\/p>\n
The Senate Committee on Health and Human Services took up an interim charge<\/a> from Lt. Gov. Dan Patrick, which asked state senators to, “examine the unethical and foreign interests exploiting the surrogacy and fertility industries in Texas.”<\/p>\n Public testimony included women who have had children through surrogacy.<\/p>\n “When I look at my son, I see the greatest blessing in my life. A deeply loved, little Texas boy whose life was made possible through ethical gestational surrogacy,” Miriam Shahab told lawmakers during a public comment period on Wednesday.<\/p>\n Shahab explained she and her husband used surrogacy after learning she would be unable to carry a child herself. <\/p>\n Women who served as surrogates themselves also shared stories about why they chose to do so, and urged lawmakers to consider the impacts of any future regulation.<\/p>\n “I am here because I watched my sister struggle with infertility for years,” Whitney Scheibner, a gestational surrogate, told lawmakers. “I ask that any future legislation be narrowly tailored to address exploitation while preserving access to safe, ethical fertility treatment.”<\/p>\n Another former surrogate, Christian Ross, shared a much different experience with the committee. She explained that after contracting with a surrogacy agency in California, she became pregnant with a donor embryo belonging to a foreign couple. She said she was misled about who the couple was, however, and the child ended up in the foster care system in England.<\/p>\n “It ruined my life, and likely, that baby’s life as well,” Ross said.<\/p>\n