Florida surrogacy fight ignites child trafficking allegations: ‘It’s akin to slavery’
Florida just became the first state to seriously challenge the surrogacy industry after a gay couple living in France contracted with a woman in Florida to be their surrogate.
The couple petitioned the Broward County court for early parental rights.
While Judge Marlon Weiss granted their petition, he questioned whether surrogacy is constitutional, claiming it violates the 13th Amendment, which abolished slavery.
“Judge Marlon Weiss argued that if unborn children are legally entitled to personhood, then they cannot legally be part of a contractual arrangement that treats them as property,” BlazeTV host Allie Beth Stuckey explains on “Relatable.”
In November, Florida Attorney General James Uthmeier moved to intervene after the child was born, also calling the practice unconstitutional.
“Today, registered sex offenders and foreigners — including Chinese nationals — buy thousands of babies from U.S. surrogacy companies. This modern day slavery is morally wrong, endangers children, and threatens national security. It must be stopped,” Uthmeier wrote in a post on X.
“It is akin to slavery,” Stuckey agrees. “Like, if we genuinely believe that the unborn are human beings, it follows that buying and selling them is slavery.”
“And that is what is happening during surrogacy, especially when it is the surrogacy that is by two men, because you have to purchase the eggs of one woman and rent the womb of another woman. And so, you are purchasing half of the DNA of that child from the genetic mother,” she says.
And this is why Stuckey believes it’s “a form of trafficking.”
“I’m not saying all of those children will literally after birth be harmed or be trafficked or be abused in some way, but it is a way of commodifying women’s bodies and children. It is. It is a way of saying, ‘I don’t care what you have to go through. I want this child,’” she says.
Stuckey recalls an interview she once did with a woman named Brittney, who had previously carried a baby for a gay couple.
“She was then diagnosed with cancer when she was about 20 or so weeks pregnant, and the couple urged her to abort her child, and she didn’t want to have an abortion,” Stuckey explains, noting that the couple wanted her to get an abortion because the child was going to be born premature.
“She did end up giving birth, and the child died. She did end up, you know, having chemotherapy. But the dads, one of whom was biologically related to this baby, didn’t even show up at the hospital — not to check on her, not to hold the baby,” she says.
“I’m telling you, that kind of story is so common. Many times in these surrogacy contracts, these women are obligated to say they will get an abortion if the intended parents want an abortion,” she continues.
“I think that happens far more often than we realize,” she says. “These babies have no rights.”
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No, Reverend Sharpton, July 4th belongs to every American
Frederick Douglass claimed the Declaration of Independence for black Americans in 1852. Martin Luther King, Jr. did it again in 1963. Now, Reverend Al Sharpton wants to give it back.
At the National Action Network's 35th Anniversary Convention this month, Sharpton proclaimed that America's 250th anniversary "is not our celebration." He called it "crazy" for black Americans to wear a birthday hat at someone else's party. He is wrong, and the history he is invoking actually proves it.
The Declaration of Independence is not a monument to what America was. It is a promise about what America must become.
On July 3, 1776, slavery was ubiquitous and unquestioned. Slaveholding was as old as civilization itself. No government on earth was organized around the belief that all men were created equal. Theocracies, monarchies, and feudal regimes were the sum and substance of the world's political order.
On July 4, 1776, that changed forever.
The Declaration did not resolve the contradiction of slavery. But it detonated it. From that moment forward, every American who held another in bondage was standing in direct defiance of the nation's stated founding principle. That tension could not hold. And it didn't.
What Sharpton omits is telling. Among the 28 grievances in the Declaration, the very first targeted the slave trade. Virginia, yes, slaveholding Virginia, had attempted to severely limit the slave trade through taxation. The king vetoed it. Jefferson called that out by name. Jefferson also drafted the provisions of the Northwest Ordinance that permanently banned slavery across more than five future states, and he signed the federal law that finally ended the slave trade. History is more complicated than the caricatures some prefer.
Even the Founders, too weak to live up to their own ideals, knew what they were doing was wrong. Jefferson wrote that he shuddered at the thought of a just God bringing retribution on the nation. Washington emancipated his slaves upon his death. The founding generation set a fuse. The Civil War was the explosion. Over 600,000 men died to settle the discussion around slavery. That would not have been possible without Independence Day.
Sharpton is not wrong to name the hypocrisy of the founders. But he is completely wrong about what July Fourth means. The suffragettes rewrote the Declaration to include themselves. Frederick Douglass wielded it as a sword against slavery. King stood on it at the Lincoln Memorial. The civil rights movement, the women's movement, and nearly every subsequent push for equality in American history have returned to that founding document as their source and authority.
The Declaration of Independence is not a monument to what America was. It is a promise about what America must become. For those whose ancestors were enslaved and oppressed, it is not someone else's birthday. It is the origin of their liberation.
The 250th anniversary is almost upon us. All Americans, especially those whose families fought hardest and waited longest to claim its promise, should mark it well.
Leslie Jones brainwashed? Actress likens marriage to ‘legalized slavery.’
Leslie Jones is not happy with the institution of marriage, and she made that clear in a recent interview with YouTuber Ziwe — where she likened marriage to “legalized slavery.”
When pressed on her stance, Jones doubled down, warning young people against getting married and comparing traditional expectations of wives to oppression.
“I think marriage is legalized slavery,” Jones told Ziwe.
When the interviewer pushed back, Jones responded, “If he is expecting you to be a trad wife, he might as well pull out a whip and a chain.”
“There are young people watching who might be wanting to get married. What would you say to them?” the interviewer then asked.
“Don’t,” Jones replied.
Shemeka Michelle tells BlazeTV host Jason Whitlock on “Jason Whitlock Harmony” that Jones’ position is not born of a healthy mindset.
“I think this is silly. She’s 58 years old, and it really bothers me when we have old women who are just bitter and angry and never been married, alone. She never had children. She wants this same bitterness and anger for young people, saying, ‘Never get married,’” Michelle says.
“How can you even liken marriage to slavery? Marriage is something that God ordained. It’s why he created woman, because man wasn’t supposed to be alone. The fact that she likens it to slavery is just her own bitterness,” she continues.
“She has some residual bitterness for not being chosen,” she adds.
Whitlock couldn’t agree with Michelle more.
“Calling marriage slavery when it’s actually the greatest tool in the pursuit of holiness, that’s what really bothers me,” he agrees.
Michelle points out that Jones’ view of marriage is based on those who enter marriage for the wrong reasons.
“For Leslie to say that, I just feel like she’s never really stepped back and taken a look at herself beyond her physical appearance. But to say, ‘How can I change? How can I be a good wife?’ Because there are a lot of women who just enter marriage for the wrong reason,” Michelle explains.
“They want the big wedding. They want the nice ring. They want to be able to think that they’ll just get to sit on the couch and eat bonbons. They’re not looking at it from an act of service and how I can be a good wife. There are a lot of women who want to get married, but there aren’t a lot who want to be wives,” she continues.
“And this is clear from the way she likens it to slavery. She just has the wrong mindset about it,” she adds.
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Alleged forced labor scandal rocks EV industry: ‘This is the price of environmentalism’
A disturbing exposé from the Washington Post is raising serious ethical questions about the global electric vehicle boom, detailing alleged “slavery-like” conditions tied to a Brazilian plant operated by Chinese automaker BYD.
The exposé details a specialized task force’s findings of the alleged scheme, which “began in China, where job postings and foremen issued false promises of good pay — usually more than $1,700 per month — often without committing them to writing.”
“At the Brazilian border, workers were brought in on visas sponsored by [Chinese electric automaker] BYD that identified them incorrectly as specialized technicians rather than manual laborers,” the exposé alleges.
“They didn’t speak Portuguese. Many of their passports, investigators found, had been locked inside a drawer at the jobsite. Most of their pay — around half of what was promised, prosecutors said — was deposited in China, not Brazil. Some of the housing structures were patrolled by an armed guard, according to investigators,” it continues.
“What China was doing was saying, ‘Hey, yeah, we’re going to pay you all this money. We’re just going to deposit it in an account that you can’t access because you’re halfway around the world. How does that do for you?’” BlazeTV host Stu Burguiere comments.
The article also points out that the workers “never seemed to do anything for fun,” and their food was prepared in a garage “amid industrial detritus and vermin.”
But it gets even worse, with the Washington Post writing that “authorities alleged BYD and its partners had preyed upon 220 vulnerable laborers — some of whom were illiterate — duping them with false promises of high pay.”
“They were then pressed into punishing labor from which they could not escape. Many had their passports confiscated, prosecutors alleged, and much of their promised pay was withheld,” the article continues.
“This is the price of your environmentalism, boys and girls. This is what’s happening all over the place. ... BYD is making these vehicles incredibly cheaply. This is not the way that Tesla is doing business by any means. But there are companies that do it this way,” Stu comments.
“We’re used to this type of thing from places like China. They can get these prices way, way down, and they’re building it on the backs of people like this,” he alleges.
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Jalen Rose claims NBA and NFL salary restrictions are a ‘residue of slavery’
Former NBA player Jalen Rose has made some bold claims — that salary caps in professional sports and restrictions preventing athletes from entering leagues straight out of high school are a “residue of slavery.”
“The only sports that have salary caps are black led, first off. So that’s basketball and football. Those [are] the only sports with salary caps. Baseball, golf, NASCAR, tennis, you can keep naming. ... That’s the first thing,” Rose explained on “Joe and Jada Unfiltered.”
“The second thing is they have no after-high-school restriction. And so that’s a residue of slavery, is because we’re going to get money off of you for multiple years for free,” he adds.
“A residue of slavery is probably Jalen Rose’s IQ at this point. That’s probably the residue of slavery that he’s referring to here,” BlazeTV host Jason Whitlock tells Steve Kim and Jay Skapinac on “Fearless.”
“It just drives me crazy that sports conversation is this stupid, this racialized. The National Hockey League has the harshest salary cap in all of sports. The top players probably making $7, $8, $9 million dollars. NFL players making $40, $50, $60 million dollars,” he adds.
“So here’s the other thing. When he brings up tennis and golf, guys, if I’m not mistaken, aren’t those guys’ winnings really their salary cap? Like if you win 10 tournaments, you’re probably going to get more than a guy that finishes in 18th place. That’s just the last time I checked,” Kim chimes in.
“It’s probably my whiteness, guys, coming through here, but I just really resent the implications that slavery is somehow tied into guys making multimillion-dollar generational wealth to play a game for a couple months a year for like 10 years of their life,” Skapinac adds.
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