The Industrial Manufacture of Children

Technology can be a blessing and a curse and nowhere is this more evident than in the creation of new life. Surrogacy—the mechanical implantation of a man’s sperm in the donated womb of a woman—is now a chosen method for creating babies. This video is not about the ethics of surrogacy per se but the abuse of it by men with evil intent. All over the world men are using the practice for what is nothing less than the industrial manufacture of children.

How are rich men using surrogacy? The Wall Street Journal recently ran an article on the schemes of wealthy men to produce offspring. The article begins, “Clerks working for family court Judge Amy Pellman were reviewing routine surrogacy petitions when they spotted an unusual pattern: the same name, again and again.” Billionaires, especially from China, were seeking to create gigantic families through surrogacy. They chose America because surrogacy is illegal in China and virtually unregulated here. One of the billionaires is Bo Xu. “Xu calls himself ‘China’s first father’ and is known in China as a vocal critic of feminism. On social media, his company said he has more than 100 children born through surrogacy in the U.S.” Xu said that through this process he hoped to have 50 high-quality sons. When Judge Pellman called Xu Bo in for a confidential hearing in the summer of 2023, he never entered the courtroom. The maker of fantasy videogames lived in China and appeared via video, speaking through an interpreter. He said he hoped to have 20 or so U.S.-born children through surrogacy—boys, because they’re superior to girls—to one day take over his business.

Again, from the Journal: “Another wealthy Chinese executive, Wang Huiwu, hired U.S. models and others as egg donors to have 10 girls, with the aim of one day marrying them off to powerful men.” Amanda Troxler, a Los Angeles-based surrogacy lawyer, said her firm consulted with a hopeful Chinese parent who said she wanted eight or 10 surrogacies and asked for a discount. Troxler said,  “No, we’re not Costco.” An increasing number of “crazy rich” clients are commissioning dozens, or even hundreds, of U.S.-born babies with the goal of forging an unstoppable family dynasty.

The market has been streamlined. At times Chinese parents have had U.S.-born children without stepping foot in the country. A thriving mini-industry of American surrogacy agencies, law firms, clinics, delivery agencies and nanny services—even to pick up the newborns from hospitals—has risen to accommodate the demand, permitting parents to ship their genetic material abroad and get a baby delivered back, at a cost of up to $200,000 per child. The article goes on to cite many other instances of mass baby production using surrogacy.

What is their reason for having lots of biological offspring? The reasons vary but underlying it all is materialistic atheism. Children are nothing more than biological cogs in a machine. They can be manufactured and then programmed to do whatever their human creator wants them to do. They want children to run their businesses or to marry into other rich families, expanding their influence. Whatever the reason the assumption is that babies are not spiritual beings but can be cranked out on an assembly line to serve their human creators.

So What’s wrong with the mass manufacture babies? Anyone see a problem here? Do you have any ethical or spiritual concerns with this process?

It hollows out the meaning of family and human dignity. When a child figures out they were conceived this way there are going to be serious psychological and spiritual repercussions. We already deal with this with adoption. Imagine the identity crisis in a young child when they realize surrogacy was their origin. Despite the wealth and resources at their disposal, these billionaires reveal a profound misunderstanding of parenting. They often approach child-rearing as a mechanism of control rather than a nurturing endeavor. Experiencing parenthood teaches many that children possess their own thoughts, feelings, and wills—an aspect that cannot be dictated or programmed.

The billionaires I read about are misogynist in the extreme. They are convinced of the inferiority of women. Of course, this has been common in most cultures from the beginning. As I have said repeatedly, it is only Christian culture that believes in the equal worth of women and it’s all because of Genesis 1:27: God created women in His image as well as men. And I have news for the billionaires. It’s a big mistake to think you can program children into automatons who will do your bidding. Every parent has made this mistake in some degree. When I first had children I assumed I could get them to do what I wanted but that’s not exactly how it worked out. Have any of you noticed that kids have minds of their own?  Let me make a prophetic utterance to Bo Xu and Wang Huiwu and other billionaires trying to mass manufacture a family. It won’t work. A generation from now you will have all kinds of movies and books about surrogate kids who grow up to be something very different from what their biological fathers intended. They will rebel. Some will turn into monsters. Some will become Christians. But there will be all kinds of outcomes the billionaires didn’t intend.

Another problem. This process is void of love. It’s all done for money. It is human selfishness run wild. No one loves these kids. They are human robots. In the United States, it is estimated that only 2 percent of surrogacy contracts are altruistic, that is, 3 unpaid, suggesting that lower-income women are attracted to surrogacy for financial reasons. Across the U.S., laws prohibit the sale of organs and criminalize prostitution precisely because there are some things that should be safeguarded from market influence. Renting reproductive capacity belongs in that category.

What is God’s family plan for mankind? God’s design for families stands in stark contrast to this transactional approach to procreation. The Bible outlines a divine blueprint for family life in Genesis 2:24, emphasizing that a man shall leave his parents and unite with his wife, forming a new family unit. These are the first instructions on how the fundamental unit of the human race is to operate. God organizes societies into families. Kids need a father and a mother. Children are spiritual beings. They must be discipled by mom and dad. Proverbs 22:6 says, Train up a child in the way he should go. That’s the job of parents. The Bible assumes children will have a mom and dad who will raise them to be what God wants them to be. Titus 1:6 says the Christian leader is responsible for the spiritual lives of his children.

This whole process needs the guiding hand of Jesus Christ and the Christian faith. We must begin with the biblical view of human nature. Men and women are spiritual beings, created in the image of God and invested with free will. Their great need is to embrace the God who created them. There are billionaires in this world who are committed to procreating biological offspring. Christians are committed to producing spiritual offspring. Beings who will worship God forever.

More: First Things on surrogacy: https://firstthings.com/the-surrogacy-exploitation-crisis/

[one thing overlooked in all this: often the purpose of surrogacy is the sexual exploitation of child] It was a welcome development, then, when Reem Alsalem, the United Nations Special Rapporteur on violence against women and girls, released a report warning that “the practice of surrogacy is characterized by exploitation and violence” and urged governments to begin “tak[ing] steps towards eradicating surrogacy in all its forms.”

Surrogacy contracts are written by and for adults, yet the one most affected has no voice. Indeed, the only distinction between a legal commercial surrogacy agreement and an illegal baby-selling arrangement is the timing of the contract. It’s a difference of degree, not kind, and doesn’t change the underlying reality: Money is exchanged, and a child is transferred.

At age seven—often when children learn of their origins—surrogate-born and donor-conceived children did worse than naturally-conceived peers, echoing adoption literature’s age of realization. 

The Beauty of Bedford Falls: https://wng.org/opinions/the-moral-beauty-of-bedford-falls-1766287671?mkt_tok=NzEwLVFSUi0yMDkAAAGe6aNqLXA-haVvl7qjA9ig6T1gLCG_DBqbhsOV-gOwfwr30I7FoI751LrMRJGWG3NBOZGym_yK3kCOnCHvZtvGorD8YKyrD4Q6rRCfCu7ZcKrL4g

Capra correctly assumes that the audience will immediately and instinctively understand that Bedford Falls is morally superior to Pottersville: One city feels human, while the other feels predatory, hollow, and cruel. The film’s confidence rests on the conviction that practical reason—the ordinary human capacity to judge what makes for a good life—allows human beings, regardless of religious belief, to perceive certain undeniable moral truths about the created order.

The basic goods of marriage and family supply the film’s most poignant argument. In Bedford Falls, George and Mary enter into a marriage marked by sacrifice, joy, and shared purpose. Their home is an old, drafty “fixer-upper,” yet it is unmistakably alive, filled with children, noise, laughter, and song. In Pottersville, Mary’s life unfolds along a different path. Deprived of the marriage she would have shared with George, her world is marked by the quiet absence of intimacy and shared life. The devastation becomes unmistakable in the absence of Zuzu’s petals from George’s pocket. We see that a world without children is not merely less populated but less beautiful. The loss registers as a genuine deprivation rather than a neutral difference.

The Surrogacy business: https://www.wsj.com/us-news/chinese-billionaires-surrogacy-pregnancy-7fdfc0c3?mod=Searchresults&pos=1&page=1

Chinese elites and billionaires who are going outside of China, where domestic surrogacy is illegal, to quietly have large numbers of U.S.-born babies. 

Another, earlier Weibo account verified as being operated by

Last month, Xu’s ex-girlfriend, Tang Jing, alleged in a post on Weibo that he had 300 children, living across numerous properties in multiple countries. Xu has previously accused Tang of theft and the two have ongoing lawsuits. Tang didn’t respond to requests for comment.

In a statement on Weibo at the time, Duoyi Network said the 300 figure was wrong but confirmed a stunning fact: “After many years of effort” through surrogacy in the U.S., Xu has “only a little over 100” children. 

More recently, a new clientele has emerged. “Elon Musk is becoming a role model now,” said [Nathan]Zhang.

One wealthy businessman in China, who like Wang is also in the education business, wanted more than 200 children at once using surrogates, envisioning a family enterprise,

Other surrogacy professionals described similarly head-spinning numbers. The owner of one agency in California said he had helped fill an order for a Chinese parent seeking 100 children in the past few years, a request spread over several agencies. 

Agencies typically receive $40,000 to $50,000 per surrogacy, separately from payments made to the surrogate carriers.

It’s not just the Chinese; a Russian billionaire with a hundred surrogate children: https://www.wsj.com/world/pavel-durov-children-fertility-sperm-donation-3d6d5231?mod=djem10point

Attractive women started showing up in summer 2024 at a fertility clinic in southern Moscow in response to an unusual marketing campaign: free sperm.

The sperm belonged to Pavel Durov, billionaire founder of the messaging app Telegram.

At conferences, on social media and on news sites, the clinic described Durov as having “high genetic compatibility” and noted he would pay for in vitro fertilization for women under 37 who wanted to use his “in-demand” sperm.

A couple in Los Angeles warehousing 22 children produced by surrogates; https://www.wsj.com/us-news/los-angeles-california-surrogate-mansion-db28c8ab?mod=series_surrogacy

In early May, after a baby was hospitalized with possible signs of child abuse, police showed up at a nine-bedroom mansion in this Los Angeles suburb known for lavish homes and residents with roots in China. Inside, they found 15 more children, none older than 3, living under the care of nannies.

The investigative trail led them to six more children at other homes in the Los Angeles area. A Chinese-born man and woman living in the mansion said they were the parents of all 22 children. Birth certificates list them as such. What mystified police was that the children appeared to have been born all over the U.S., and in rapid succession.

Surrogates often bear the costs and the problems with their pregnancies: https://www.wsj.com/us-news/surrogacy-unregulated-debts-profits-b9fdd987?mod=djem10point