Dear Friend,

The future is on the line.

And we need your immediate help to make sure it turns out right.

That’s not hyperbole. It’s a fact.

I’m just back from New York, where I learned that New York Governor Andrew Cuomo is about to legalize commercial surrogacy in New York State, and we are the only organization in America equipped to stop him.

If paid surrogacy is legalized in New York, expect it sweep the country soon afterward. It would set the rights of women and children back decades, and possibly establish a precedent from which our society will never recover.

There is extraordinary irony here: Andrew Cuomo’s father, the late Governor Mario Cuomo, stopped commercial surrogacy in his state. According to their report,

The Task Force unanimously recommended that public policy should prohibit commercial surrogate parenting. The members concluded that the practice could not be distinguished from the sale of children and that it placed children at significant risk of harm. They also agreed that surrogacy undermines the dignity of women, children, and human reproduction. The Task Force rejected the notion that rights as fundamental as the right of a parent to a relationship with his or her child should be bought and sold or waived irrevocably in advance of the child’s birth (emphasis added).

Now, Governor Mario Cuomo’s son Andrew is employing that very same Task Force in an effort to legitimize paid surrogacy.

Question: When did selling children and putting them at significant risk of harm become okay?

We need to remind the current Governor Cuomo—in the most visible and persuasive ways possible—that moral principles don’t expire. We need to convince him through a robust media campaign that overturning his father’s order would be catastrophic to women and children in New York and across the nation.

We can do this with your help. We can win in New York, and dramatically shift the momentum in this debate back in our favor.

But it’s truly up to you—to all of us.

The fight is now in New York, our nation’s media capital.

We need to win it. Losing is too frightening to contemplate.

Can we count on you to help?

A million thanks in advance for your generosity. Together, we can do this.

Sincerely,
Jennifer Lahl, President


P.S. We’ve just received a generous matching gift of $100,000. Any gift you give now will be doubled, which will allow us to start 2016 strong! Please give today.

Together we can turn the tide on surrogacy in New York and across the nation. And the matching gift doubles the impact of your gift. Thank you!

You make our work possible

The Center for Bioethics and Culture is a non-profit 501(c)(3) public benefit educational organization. All gifts are tax-deductible.

Author Profile

Jennifer Lahl, CBC Founder
Jennifer Lahl, CBC Founder
Jennifer Lahl, MA, BSN, RN, is founder and president of The Center for Bioethics and Culture Network. Lahl couples her 25 years of experience as a pediatric critical care nurse, a hospital administrator, and a senior-level nursing manager with a deep passion to speak for those who have no voice. Lahl’s writings have appeared in various publications including Cambridge University Press, the San Francisco Chronicle, the Dallas Morning News, and the American Journal of Bioethics. As a field expert, she is routinely interviewed on radio and television including ABC, CBS, PBS, and NPR. She is also called upon to speak alongside lawmakers and members of the scientific community, even being invited to speak to members of the European Parliament in Brussels to address issues of egg trafficking; she has three times addressed the United Nations during the Commission on the Status of Women on egg and womb trafficking.