In the Golden State’s latest legislative escapade, California’s Senate Bill 729 is on the cusp of creating a marketplace that commodifies the very cradle of life—women’s bodies—effectively creating a legalized sex slave trade in the state. This proposed piece of legislation, crafted and introduced by Senator Menjivar and bolstered by legislators such as Assembly Member Wicks, Senators Portantino and Wiener, and Assembly Members Low and Pellerin, is a seismic shift in the ethical landscape, a step towards the institutionalization of surrogacy as a service as detached from morality as buying a car or renting an apartment.

The bill’s text—steeped in the parlance of healthcare coverage—may seem innocuous at first glance, but a closer reading reveals implications that reach far beyond the provision of medical services. The bill, which would require insurance companies to provide surrogacy for homosexual couples, is more than just a matter of extending “healthcare coverage” to include infertility and fertility treatments—it’s the pivot towards a normalized, transactional view of human fertility and gestation, with specific overtones of entitlement for homosexual men to what is being labeled childbearing services. This is a move that elevates the acquisition of children to a right akin to consumerism, potentially transforming surrogacy into an industry.

The bill, which ostensibly aims to widen the umbrella of “basic health care services” to include a swath of fertility treatments, is woven with language that sets the stage for a paradigm where a woman’s womb becomes a purchasable commodity, effectively turning women into slaves. The text of the bill is riddled with legalese that, when unpacked, leads to an inexorable conclusion: under the guise of expanding healthcare, we are witnessing the birth of a new trade, one that deals in the most intimate currency of human biology.

It’s worth sifting through the fine print here, where the bill’s language portends a future where the natural bond between mother and child is severed by financial transaction. “Coverage for the treatment of infertility,” the bill demands, “shall be offered and provided without discrimination on the basis of sex, sexual orientation, marital status, gender, gender identity, or gender expression.” One might assume that the surrogate mother must volunteer for the service. But, hypothetically speaking, if there were no available volunteers—and this is a likely scenario with the rapidly expanding homosexual population in the state—how would the government then “guarantee” such services?

The only way is to raise the price, offering more money, effectively creating a legalized form of prostitution for the highest bidder. This isn’t a call for inclusivity, it’s human trafficking. It’s a legislative green light for a fertility free-for-all, where the only barrier to a baby is the depth of your pockets, women’s rights be damned.

But let’s call this what it is: by including surrogacy within the realm of insurance coverage, what’s being pitched as an expansion of rights is, in effect, the state sanctioning the sale of human life-creating capabilities. It puts a price tag on pregnancy, transforming a process that should be bounded by the sanctity of human connection into a marketplace exchange. And while the bill doesn’t explicitly herald in an age of surrogacy on demand, it lays the financial foundation for it.

In a society that once venerated the miracle of life, we now have legislators insidiously crafting a bazaar where women’s most inherent capacity—childbearing—is up for the highest bidder. This is not liberation, it’s a thinly veiled commodification dressed up in the noble robes of healthcare and rights. The implications are profound and deeply disconcerting, especially for those of us who believe in the inviolability of life and the sacred nature of motherhood.

With the passing of this bill, we edge closer to a reality where the miracle of birth is transmuted into a commercial transaction. The womb becomes a rental space, and the process of creation itself is reduced to a clinical exchange. It’s a brave new world where everything is for sale, including the very means by which life is brought forth.

This bill would do far more damage to the state’s moral fabric than the left would have you believe—it’s a challenge to the very notion of what it means to be human. It’s a reminder that in our headlong rush to enshrine every desire as a right, we risk losing sight of the profound mysteries and dignities that make life worth living. For those who still hold those mysteries sacred, Senate Bill 729 is anathema to the deeply held belief that some things should simply be beyond the reach of commerce.