I regularly write articles about shocking cultural developments, and by now I’m (sadly) somewhat used to it.

Evil men go from bad to worse just like 2 Timothy 3:13 says, and while sin never ultimately gets less hateful, it does tend to get somewhat less surprising as time goes on.

However, in June of this year, the Massachusetts House passed a bill that shocked even me. It’s known innocently as the “Parentage Equality” bill, and if it’s passed by the Senate and signed by the Governor, it’ll be a Trojan horse if there ever was one.

This bill has been trumped up as a “long-overdue” “tune up” to Massachusetts family law which removes “outdated norms or narrow definitions.” That sounds all nice and everything, until you realize that the “outdated” terms being removed are all those oppressively gender-specific words like “man,” “woman,” and “paternity.”

Take a look at the first couple pages of the bill, which precisely scrub out those archaic words and insert nicely gender-neutral words like “persons” and “parentage.” So, instead of men having paternity of their children, we move to “persons” having “parentage” of them.

All better now.

It sure is frustrating to watch 21th-century legislators dismiss thousands of years of civilization as “outdated norms” that need a “tune up.” The arrogance is hard to fathom.

It gets even worse when we realize that those thousands of years of civilization relied on a degree of  common sense that directly reflects God’s created order and His Word. Put that way, the arrogance is mind-blowing.

However, as serious as it is to strip the family of its inherent sexual structure, I think this “gender neutral family” business may be among the least of our worries about this particular bill.

There’s now a huge outcry going up about this bill because of the loopholes it has inserted into surrogacy arrangements. Believe it or not, if this bill becomes law, mothers will be legally allowed to sell their biological children.

Don’t take my word for it—let’s look at a few direct quotes from the bill.

A) First, realize that parentage of a child would now be based on intent, not biology. “A person who consents to assisted reproduction with the intent to be a parent of a child conceived by the assisted reproduction is a parent of the child” (p. 21).

B) Next, a surrogacy agreement could be made even after the child has already been brought into being—it does not have to have been the original plan all along. “If all parties agree, a court may validate a genetic surrogacy agreement after assisted reproduction has occurred but before the birth of a child…” (p. 40).

C) Furthermore, even after a woman becomes pregnant, she can decide to label her own natural pregnancy as a surrogacy. “… an action to establish parentage of a child may be instituted during pregnancy but shall only be filed by the person to give birth or their representative or by the IV-D agency…” (p. 12).

D) Finally, a woman could agree to engage in surrogacy for payment. “A surrogacy agreement may provide for… payment of consideration and reasonable expenses…” (p. 30).

Okay, enough legal details. Now you know I’m not making this up, so let’s put it all together.

What does this law allow? Let’s say a woman conceives a child by assisted reproduction, but for some reason decides that she doesn’t want to remain the child’s mother. She remembers that surrogacy agreements are allowed to be made even after she conceives (B). So she initiates an action for someone else to become her child’s parent (C).

Yet, she decides she wants some money out of the deal, which she is legally allowed to do (D), so she makes sure that’s written into the contract. Because parentage is now based on intent, then the other person is now legally the child’s parent (A), all because of the agreement by which he traded money for the baby.

Wait, I thought we settled the question of whether you could sell people for money back in 1865!

Massachusetts, say hello to human trafficking. Take a look at this article from Live Action, which discusses a California baby-selling ring that was busted in 2011. The article also lists a couple hair-raising accounts of men who paid women to gestate children for them, and then took possession of the children to sexually abuse them.

I stand in awe of our unending determination to sacrifice every created reality to the unbending idol of our own iron will.

You don’t have to actually be a parent. All you have to do is want to be one. Bing! Now you’re now a parent.

You don’t have to be the mother you already are. All you have to do is sign away your child to someone else. Bing! Now you’re free.

And if you want to get some money out of the deal, you should be able to do that, too.

But as long as our own desires remain our idol, I supposed I shouldn’t be too surprised. Intent-based parenting and baby-selling are the logical conclusion of a choice we made a long time ago: what we want is more important than what God wants.

Only a heart-change can save this country.