Children

Why Adoption is Beautiful and Surrogacy Isn’t

The launch of the Greater Than campaign, “[a] coalition of parents, students, researchers, think tanks, influencers, and citizens aimed at ending same-sex marriage in America,” elicited a spectrum of reactions. A common response is to simply deny that children need, deserve, and have a right to their mother and father, or that same-sex “marriage” poses any risks to their health and well-being. Another response is to proclaim the issue “settled” because of the Obergefell Supreme Court decision (apparently by those unaware of the history of the Supreme Court and the story of Roe v. Wade).  

Tennis great Martina Navratilova, an advocate of women’s rights and vocal opponent of transgender ideology, condemned the Greater Than coalition: 

Speaking of evil. Or, at least vile. According to these people, our relationships, our families and most of all, our kids, DO NOT COUNT. What is it to them? How I, a woman, married to a woman, affect people I never met just because I don’t have a husband? MYOB!!! 

However, her comments, posted on X, reinforce the basic argument the coalition is making: that same-sex “marriage” is about the desires of adults, not what’s best for children. 

The claim that our social policies should align with what is true, that children deserve to be raised in a home with a married, biological, mom and dad, also brought questions from those who care deeply about children; so much so, in fact, that they are adoptive parents. What does the reasoning about God’s created intent for family structure mean for adoption?  

It’s a good question; and like what follows when a similar critique is made of surrogacy. It is no accident that the legalization of same-sex “marriage” has increased demand for the legalization of surrogacy. Having chosen an inherently sterile union, many same-sex couples demand children. Acquiring children requires a technological workaround like IVF and surrogacy. In the process, a child is created and immediately robbed of either its mother or father or both.  

So, if children have a right to their married, biological mom and dad, are the implications for adoption the same as for surrogacy, sperm donors, or redefining marriage? Not at all. 

God’s design for the family is that a man and wife become one flesh and raise children together. The Fall frustrates this design in different ways. Families break. Couples find that their sexual union is infertile. Biological parents find themselves unable to care for their children for various reasons. A sexual act, disordered toward illegitimate pleasure or even selfish violence, produces a life unintended and unexpected. 

Whatever the brokenness, adoption offers a means of restoration. Implicitly, the act of adoption recognizes that something is not as it should be, whether or not someone is morally culpable. Through adoption, the brokenness is addressed and restored by a new family.  

In these ways, adoption portrays God’s relationship with us. Adoption is among the many marriage-and-family metaphors used in Scripture to describe how God relates to His people. Paul, in Ephesians, calls Christians “adopted” sons and daughters of God through Jesus Christ. The fracture created in the Garden and extended by our own brokenness is repaired by Jesus. As a result, we are adopted children of God, with all the rights and benefits and status involved. 

Some question whether a woman’s relationship to a child that she bears in pregnancy is important. Are not adoptive moms just as emotionally and spiritually connected to their children as a biological mother could be? Yes, but it is also true that there is an inherent connection for the child to the woman who bears him or her. This is true whether she is a surrogate or enters an adoption contract. A mom that relinquishes her right to raise a child is still a mom. Adoption recognizes the reality that she has done what is best for her child and, at some level, brings redemption to the brokenness. Surrogacy intentionally creates the brokenness. In the case of surrogacy, the mother-child relationship is created only to be knowingly and intentionally severed. 

In adoption, a woman who did not bear the child becomes a mother. In surrogacy, a mother is treated as less than a whole person, wanted for her procreational parts that are treated as consumer products, especially as commercial surrogacy becomes more common. Surrogacy also treats the child as a consumer product, instead of as a gift. 

According to a Williams Institute study, the majority of same-sex couples prefer technologies such as insemination, surrogacy, and IVF, to adoption as a means to acquire children. Studies indicate that up to 40% of all surrogate pregnancies are commissioned by gay couples. Of course, even in adoption a same sex couple further deprives a child of either a mother or father.  

Unfortunately, same sex “marriage” and surrogacy have become so normalized that, even in the Christian world, speaking against either is considered controversial. It should not be. In our fallen world, families break, but we should never break them on purpose.

Choosing Truth Over Secrecy: Trey Carlock and the Moral Case for Trey’s Law

From the outside looking in, Raymon “Trey” Carlock enjoyed a happy and wholesome adolescence and professional rise — but not everything is always as it appears.

Studying at Cistercian Preparatory School and Highland Park High School in Dallas, Trey was an Eagle Scout and also studied in Greece, Switzerland and Zambia. He played tennis, football, lacrosse and ran cross country.  He graduated with honors from Harding University in Arkansas.

But through many of those adventures and accomplishments, Trey was carrying a dark and evil burden. He had been sexually abused at summer camp as a young boy by a pedophile who eventually pleaded guilty to not only abusing him, but also many others.

As part of a settlement, Trey signed a “Non-Disclosure Agreement” — a legally binding contract that prohibits signatories from sharing specific details about a particular incident.

Over the years, many organizations and institutions, including the Catholic Church and Boy Scouts, have used NDAs as a means to maintain secrecy regarding sensitive, controversial and damaging information.

Trey Carlock’s family has said the pain and anguish he was dealing with was only exacerbated by not being able to talk publicly about the crime. He died by suicide in 2019.

NDAs are a staple in corporate America, regularly used to protect confidential or proprietary information, including intellectual property. Companies and organizations may also use them to avoid litigation or bad public relations. We’ve all read and seen news stories when a subject declines to talk or go into detail. In many cases, it’s because they’ve received compensation in exchange for their silence.

Understandably, there’s a rising chorus of people and individuals opposing the use of NDAs to silence victims of sexual abuse. This is the energy and origin behind “Trey’s Law” — a national movement designed to protect survivors’ voices and ban the use of these agreements in instances where organizations or businesses would prefer victims not publicly discuss what happened to them.

Spearheaded by Elizabeth Carlock Phillips, Trey’s sister, the group’s mission states:

Survivors of child sexual abuse and trafficking should never be silenced, anywhere. Through advocacy, education, and legislative action, we’re working to expand Trey’s Law in every state–ensuring survivors have the freedom to share their own stories, hold bad actors accountable, and prevent further harm. This is an urgent matter of public safety.

This is more than policy reform — it’s a promise to stand on the side of victims, not predators.

To date, four states — California, Missouri, Tennessee and Texas — have passed “Trey’s Law.” While other states have enacted versions of such bans for agreements going forward, what’s distinct about this effort is that the Trey’s legislation allows victims who have previously been silenced to now speak out.

Focus on the Family strongly supports this effort. We grieve the abuse, evil and wickedness that victims of abuse have been forced to endure. The Apostle Paul wrote to believers in Ephesus that, “It is shameful even to mention what the disobedient do in secret” (5:12), but NDAs in this context do not serve or protect individuals or families.

To make informed decisions, moms and dads and children need to know what’s going on and where — especially when it comes to choosing a summer camp for their children.

Children’s Rights Should Always Come Before Adults’ Desires

Katy Faust, founder of the non-profit organization “Them Before Us,” believes every child deserves a mother and a father.

So does Focus on the Family President Jim Daly, Southern Seminary President Dr. Albert Mohler, Colson Center President John Stonestreet, Family Research Council President Tony Perkins, LiveAction Founder and President Lila Rose, the Heritage Foundation’s Delano Squires, and popular podcasters Allie Beth Stuckey, Michael Knowles and Josh Hammer.

That’s why they’re all supporting Katy Faust’s “Greater Than Movement” — a broad coalition of “parents, students, researchers, think tanks, influencers, and citizens” willing to actively lobby for public policy that supports the ideal of every child enjoying what culture for multi-millennia has taken as obvious — that no child should be deliberately prevented from having a mom and dad.

In a video featured on the new coalition’s website, Focus on the Family’s Jim Daly states, “When you look at social science, it says beyond a shadow of a doubt that children that grow up in a loving, two-parent, biological home, with a mom and dad, those children will do best.”

In that same video, Lila Rose calls the Supreme Court’s Obergefell decision, which legalized same-sex marriage in all fifty states, a ruling that “created inequality for children.”

Dr. Albert Mohler warns, “You redefine marriage, you have just destroyed the house. You can put together a new house and claim it’s the same. Children will know the difference. It harms children in virtually every way imaginable.”

John Stonestreet notes, “The data that we have says two things. Number one, children do best when they are raised in a home with married, biological mom and dad. The other thing we know from research is that moms don’t dad and dads don’t mom. It’s not enough to say kids just need loving parents because kids need a particular kind of parent. Parenting comes in two forms, moms and dads.”

The “Greater Than Movement” strives to both shape and overturn laws — including the legalization of same-sex marriage — that harm children.

In America today, children brought into a same-sex marital relationship are deliberately deprived from having both a mother and a father. This is done for no other reason than to satisfy the desires of the adults, a grand selfish act that harms boys and girls who then grow up into adulthood with all the accompanying deficits and dysfunctions that are associated with not having the unique and distinct male and female influences in their lives.

As the coalition correctly declares, children’s rights aren’t up for debate. Children are sacrosanct. They are vulnerable and incapable of representing and defending themselves, and so responsible adults must step in to do so. Many of the current debates raging today would be unfathomable to previous generations, but simply lamenting the circumstances won’t solve the problem or help the children.

The movement even quotes a former ally — President Barack Obama. Said our 44th president, “We know that children benefit not just from loving mothers and loving fathers, but from strong and loving marriages as well.” President Obama said that at a White House Father’s Day event in 2010. He was right. Sadly, he changed his mind in 2012 when he came out in support of same-sex marriage.

Please consider joining the effort to protect children by visiting their website and adding your voice and support to the commitment.

To Make Marriage and Children Great Again, We Must Make Hearts Whole Again

According to The New York Times, the Trump Administration’s efforts to increase marriage and birth rates are stalling 358 days into the president’s second term.

To buttress her case, reporter Caroline Kitchener cites the various proposals officials have talked about enacting but that have not yet happened, including legislative actions to expand tax credits, establish a “baby bonus,” and even implement something called a “honeymoon bonus” which would be geared toward extending federal benefits to low-income couples for a year following their marriage.

Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy has been mocked by some for calling the plummeting birthrate a “national security threat” — but that’s exactly what it is. A nation dropping below replacement level sets in motion a cascading series of devastating consequences ranging from its financial impact to social to even military and public safety concerns. 

Last year, Focus on the Family president Jim Daly observed, “People of faith have long championed the value of children because more children will benefit everyone.” He then warned, “It’s the declining birthrate that poses an existential threat, and it’s an issue we must address — or ignore at our peril.”

How we address that threat remains a hotly debated issue.

Ms. Kitchener quotes White House spokesperson Kush Desai as saying the White House is taking a “multifaceted approach” to the dilemma, a strategy that makes perfect sense but that also points to the limitations government and the bully pulpit have when it comes to encouraging marriage and having children.

There’s also the incredibly slow and inefficient grind of Big Brother. It’s curious that the Times is expecting so much in such a short amount of time — but also revealing they don’t disagree with the many concerns surrounding the collapsing birth rate.

Since Donald and Melania Trump took that famed golden escalator ride back in 2015, the 45th and now 47th president has repeatedly emphasized his goal of making “America Great Again.” Last month, Jim O’Neill, Deputy Secretary of Health and Human Services said HHS was striving to “make America fertile again.”

Both pledges are aspirational and inspirational, but something else must happen if marriage and children are to be once more widely honored, revered and celebrated.

American hearts need to be made whole again.

Not cardiovascular health, but the spiritual and inner life of men, women and children.

It was King Solomon who taught, “Above all else, guard your heart, for it is the wellspring of life” (Proverbs 4:23). What’s in your heart is the most significant indication of the type of life you will lead.

Couples and parents deserve to hold onto as much of their hard-earned income as possible, but financial incentives will only go so far to encourage marriage and children. It was Dr. Adrian Rogers, a Focus on the Family board member and beloved pastor, who famously quipped:

“The heart of the human problem is the problem of the human heart.”

Men and women must recognize and come to appreciate that fulfillment in life comes from being “others” focused. Good marriages are selfless and sacrificial. They give and don’t keep score. They realize that true fulfillment comes from commitment and giving of oneself.

Good parents acknowledge that children aren’t always convenient, but they are beautiful and bring meaning to life. They also aren’t cheap — but they are priceless and invaluable. As Dr. John Trainer s wrote,

“Children are not a distraction from more important work. They are the most important work.”

The solution to America’s birth dearth is multifaceted, but its cause isn’t as complex. Broken hearts and broken homes lead to broken cultures — including a reluctance to marry and have children.

King David’s plea should be ours, too:

“Create in me a pure heart, O God, and renew a steadfast spirit within me” (Psalm 51:10).

One, Big Beautiful Truth: Christians Need to Have More Children

Delegates of the Southern Baptist Convention voted overwhelmingly on Tuesday in Dallas in favor of a resolution calling for the overturning of any laws that define marriage as anything other than a union between one man and one woman.

Titled, “On Restoring Moral Clarity through God’s Design for Gender, Marriage, and Family,” the eloquent and biblically rooted document affirms numerous other truths and calls attention to various cultural challenges – including the pursuit of “willful childlessness.”

Here is the actual language:

WHEREAS, Our culture is increasingly rejecting and distorting these truths by redefining marriage, pursuing willful childlessness which contributes to a declining fertility rate, ignoring and suppressing the biological differences between male and female, encouraging gender confusion, undermining parental rights, and denying the value and dignity of children; and 

WHEREAS, Commercial surrogacy often treats children as products and women as a means to an end, and may entail the destruction of embryonic life, violating the dignity of human life and distorting God’s design for procreation within marriage;

WHEREAS, Christians are called to grieve with and support couples who struggle with infertility and to uphold moral and compassionate paths to parenthood that protect human dignity;

At first, the pursuit of “willful childlessness” sounds almost oxymoronic, but we all know what that means: married couples who could presumably conceive children are deliberately deciding not to and for not very good reasons.

At the top of the list of reasons couples often give for not having children is the “burden” they supposedly introduce to personal freedom. Then there are the financial obligations. Media loves to quote how much it costs to raise a child from birth to adulthood. It’s always an eye-popping number but also void of context and the fact that children truly are “cheaper by the dozen.” 

Other reasons for the collapsing birth rate include prioritization of career over family – and the obvious observation that fewer marriages inevitably lead to fewer children being born.

Scripture is crystal clear that “Children are a heritage from the Lord, the fruit of the womb a reward. Like arrows in the hand of a warrior are the children of one’s youth. Blessed is the man who fills his quiver with them! He shall not be put to shame when he speaks with his enemies in the gate” (Psalm 127:3-5).

Within the Christian community, there is a broad spectrum of conviction regarding family planning and the conception of children is the most deeply intimate and personal aspect of the marital union. At the same time, Christians should be in full agreement that children are a blessing and not a burden. Going into marriage, and barring any unusual circumstances, the desire for children should be the norm and not the exception.

The Christian birth rate (1.9-2.2 children depending on the study) in the United States is slightly higher than the overall fertility rate (1.7) – but only slightly. As such, the Church would be wise to prioritize the biblically sound and culturally critical message that believing couples should prayerfully and bravely be open to having more children.

Observed Benjamin Franklin, “He that raises a large family does, indeed, while he lives to observe them, stand a broader mark for sorrow; but then he stands a broader mark for pleasure too.”

For months now we’ve been hearing a lot about the “One, Big, Beautiful Bill” – legislation that promises to enact wide sweeping positive changes in the tax code, including the defunding of Planned Parenthood and an increase in the Child Tax Credit. But the “One, Big Beautiful Truth” is that the health and prosperity of America correlates with the vitality of the family – and we need Christian families with lots of children to truly thrive as a nation.

Image from Shutterstock.