Sen. Rick Scott (R., Fla.) is renewing his push for one of his signature bills, the SAFE KIDS Act, following a high-profile case involving one of his constituents. For months, Scott has argued that the SAFE KIDS Act is necessary, especially in the wake of the Supreme Court’s ruling on birthright citizenship.
Now, Scott explained to the Washington Reporter, that “the Senate should pass [his] bill immediately,” especially because of how America’s surrogacy laws are playing out in his home state. Following a lengthy piece in The New York Magazine by Emi Nietfeld about how a Florida woman has been embroiled in an international surrogacy nightmare with a biological father who is a single man in China.
While Scott and his allies view the SAFE KIDS Act as a common sense piece of legislation, Democrats like Sen. Dick Durbin (D., Ill.) have recently opposed its passage on the Senate floor, calling it a conspiracy theory that Chinese nationals are purchasing American-born infants. Following the recent Supreme Court ruling on birthright citizenship, all infants born in America are automatically U.S. citizens; Scott and others view this as a glaring loophole that citizens from adversarial nations can exploit. His bill prevents people from North Korea, China, Russia, and Iran from entering into commercial surrogacy agreements within America’s borders.
But Scott is persistent in the need for his bill’s passage. “A Florida mom carried and gave birth to triplets and cared for them for two years after one of them tragically passed away,” Scott explained to the Reporter. “Now, nearly two years later, a Chinese national who never had to set foot on American soil wants to take these children away from the woman who has cared for them since birth. This is a tragedy for her and her children, who did absolutely nothing wrong, and it is the exact situation my SAFE KIDS Act seeks to prevent.”
“We cannot allow foreign adversaries like the CCP to exploit American birthright citizenship and put innocent children in the crossfire,” Scott explained. “This is a national security threat and a child welfare problem. I am grateful the 13 co-sponsors supporting the SAFE KIDS Act, but this is an issue every Senator should support, regardless of party. The Senate should pass this bill immediately.”
Both state and federal Republicans in Scott’s Florida are siding with the state’s senior senator; Attorney General James Uthmeier has aggressively sided with the Florida woman who gave birth to the triplets in the case that Scott described; Austin Rogers, a former top aide to Scott who is a frontrunner in the race to succeed Rep. Neal Dunn (R., Fla.) previously penned an op-ed in the Reporter about why the bill needs to pass.
“I regularly discuss this issue with voters as a clear example of why confronting the China threat must remain a top American foreign policy priority,” Rogers wrote. “I will continue speaking out on this critical issue because it deserves the full attention of the American people, and the next Congress elected in November. Our national security demands it. The lives of America’s children, and the future of our culture, depend on it too.”
