Waking up to the plight of motherless children

In recent weeks, Saturday Night Live aired a “New Parents” skit of a gay couple introducing their newborn to friends. But when those friends ask normal questions like, “Where did you get this baby?” they’re instantly scolded. “Wow … you sound like a Republican.” “Why are you obsessed with the mom?”

This is a massive departure from how mainstream media has approached gay families over the past couple decades, portraying them as overwhelmingly positive, even idealized, in sitcoms, dramas, and movies. Shows like Modern Family cast Mitch and Cam as the lovable, quirky duo raising their adopted daughter in a home full of warmth and humor. She, of course, was more grounded and better adjusted than many children from the heterosexual couples in the show. In Glee, The New Normal, and films like Love, Simon, gay relationships were presented not only as normal but as emotionally superior—more sensitive, stylish, and intentional than their heterosexual counterparts.

So SNL is charting new waters. They dipped a toe into criticizing gay couples last year, but not this directly. In 2024 they debuted a skit called “We’re Trying” where a gay couple shares that they’re “trying” to have a baby “the old-fashioned way.” Confused, and asking for clarification, the heterosexual friends’ questioning is met with the same level of deflection and defensiveness on display in “New Parents.”

The jokes land because they’re pointing to something real: For years, even asking basic questions about the unnatural pathway that many gay men choose to create a family was treated as backward, bigoted, or hateful. Not anymore.

I’ve seen the shift firsthand. Since founding Them Before Us in 2018, we’ve consistently critiqued surrogacy, not just when used by same-sex couples, but across the board. Our position is simple: Children have a right to their mother and father, and intentionally depriving them of either is a form of injustice.

But for much of the past decade, our critiques of surrogacy, especially when leveled at gay couples, were met with protectiveness on behalf of the adult men, not the child. Whether legislatively challenging genderless parenthood, or sharing a picture of a gay couple holding a newborn, the response was often:

“They’ll be better parents than most straight people!”

“This planned and wanted child is better off than the heterosexual couple who ‘oopsied’ their way into parenthood.”

For much of the past decade, gay singles or couples announcing a surrogate pregnancy or birth have been celebrated. Case in point, in 2020, when Anderson Cooper announced the birth of his son via surrogacy, the praise was overwhelming—across the ideological spectrum. The right said little. The left called it beautiful.

Likewise when Andy Cohen became a father in 2019 (and again in 2022), the dominant public response was celebration. And when right-leaning gay men like Dave Rubin and his husband (who have two boys born via surrogacy in August 2022) made his announcement, conservative influencers fell over themselves offering congratulations.

But now? Things are different.

Today, when I share an image of gay men in a hospital bed, clutching a still-shivering newborn, the internet doesn’t cancel me. It amplifies me. Those posts routinely go viral.

It’s not just my observations. Gay celeb surrogacy announcements are no longer being met by an unbroken chorus of congratulations. In May 2024 when gay influencer Carl Cunard shared the news that he and his partner were having a baby via surrogacy he lost 17,000 followers and posted a story expressing his heartbreak over the “hate” he had received. That same month, former Bachelor star Colton Underwood, announced his and his husband’s surrogate pregnancy. When people asked basic questions or expressed discomfort, he posted a video rebuking the critics and asking people to “lead with kindness.” Gay Republican Guy Benson, though congratulated by several conservatives, ultimately turned the comments off on his December 2023 birth announcement and blocked me before I could even respond. Even Lily Collins, actress and daughter of Phil Collins, received strong backlash after her surrogacy announcements. A few days later, her husband posted, “It’s OK to not be an expert on surrogacy. … And it’s OK to spend less time spewing hateful words into the world.”

The surrogacy mask is slipping. People feel free, for the first time in years, to say what they really think: that children need their mothers, and they should not be bought and sold.

This shift is fueled by two things:

First, the cultural pendulum is swinging right. Progressives overplayed their hand—on gender, on race, on modern family—and what was billed as, “how will my gay marriage harm anyone else?” has been exposed as a deliberate tactic to overhaul our nation’s social fabric. Being called a bigot for stating biological facts doesn’t hit like it used to.

Second, the pro-child, anti-surrogacy movement is growing. Organizations like mine that have been sounding the alarm over and over and over and over are growing in visibility. X accounts like @SurrogacyConcern regularly post widely shared, shocking stories of celebrities, single men, and male couples acquiring surrogate children. The Casablanca Declaration, a coalition of feminist, secular, and religious voices working to ban surrogacy globally is gaining steam.

The effect is the refutation of the facade that surrogacy is just a woman trying to help her post-cancer sister have a child. Ordinary people are starting to see that when it comes to gay surrogacy especially, “love” doesn’t make a family.

We are watching a vibe shift in real time. The national mood matches the SNL skit. “I love my gay friends—but nobody should be making motherless babies.”