The World and Everything in It: August 29, 2023

PREROLL: The World and Everything in It is made possible by listeners like me. Hi, I'm Jane Suderman from central Kansas. I am wife of Adam and mom of Josiah, almost five, and Isaiah almost three. It is our 10 year anniversary in August. I love you. I hope you enjoy today's program.

MARY REICHARD, HOST: Good morning! The space race isn’t just between the United States and Russia, as it once was.

AUDIO: Soft landing on the moon. India is on the moon.

NICK EICHER, HOST: We’ll find out what recent missions to the moon mean to get man back to it. Also, the economic bloc of nations known as BRICS has invited new members to the club, including Iran. What’s behind the move?

Plus, parents, prodigals and the power of prayer.

AUDIO: No one can pray for a prodigal like a parent can. That’s why we need to be grouped with others who have had the same experience.

And WORLD Opinions Commentator Ericka Anderson on Italy’s new law that restricts surrogacy.

REICHARD: It’s Tuesday, August 29th. This is The World and Everything in It from listener-supported WORLD Radio. I’m Mary Reichard.

EICHER: And I’m Nick Eicher. Good morning!

REICHARD: Now news. Here’s Kristen Flavin

KRISTEN FLAVIN, NEWS ANCHOR: Trump legal » Former President Trump will head to Washington courthouse on March 4th of next year. A judge on Monday announced the trial date in the federal case charging Trump with trying to overturn in the 2020 election.

Prosecutors wanted a January date. Trump’s lawyers wanted to push it back by years.

Former Federal prosecutor David Weinstein says the judge felt both proposals were unreasonable.

WEINSTEIN: So she picked one that was certainly reasonable in her mind, that she felt gave both sides enough time to get ready for trial.

And a state court in Fulton County, Georgia says Trump and 18 co-defendants will be arraigned one week from tomorrow.

Democratic Prosecutor Fanni Willis accuses them of scheming to overturn the state’s 2020 election.

Mark Meadows » Among Trump’s co-defendants in Georgia case is former White House Chief of Staff Mark Meadows. And his lawyers say his portion of the case should be moved to a federal court, as he was serving in a federal role at the time.

Meadows also argues that he was just doing his job when he arranged a phone call between Trump and Georgia Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger.

MEADOWS: Mr President I'll turn it over to you.

TRUMP: I just want to find 11,780 votes which is one more that we have.

Several other co-defendants in the case are also trying to move their trials to federal court. They are accused of onspiring to overturn results of the 2020 presidential election in the state. Trump has denied any wrongdoing.

A federal judge in Atlanta is considering whether Former White House chief of staff Mark Meadows should have his portion of an election interference case tried in federal court.

Prosecutors from Fulton County, Georgia charged Meadows as one of former President Trump’s co-conspirators in an election racketering case.

Idalia / DeSantis halts campaign » As Hurricane Idalia continues to grow more powerful over warm Gulf waters, the warnings from Florida officials are growing more dire.

Forecasters originally thought Idalia would strike the Gulf Coast as a tropical storm. Then they predicted a Category-1 hurricane.

And now:

DESANTIS: It is forecast to reach landfall as a major hurricane, a Category-3.

Gov. Ron DeSantis heard there. He has declared a widespread state of emergency.

Communities along Florida’s Gulf Coast are still recovering from last year’s Hurricane Ian, which slammed the state as a monstrous Category-5 storm.

DeSantis response to shooting » Also on Monday, Gov. DeSantis announced action in the wake of a deadly racially motivated shooting in Jacksonville.

DESANTIS: We’re going to be able to do one million dollars to Edwin Waters College to increase security on campus. As I’ve said for the last couple of days, we are not going to allow our HBCUs to be targeted.

A 21-year-old shooter tried to enter the historically black college on Saturday before driving to a nearby Dollar General store, where he gunned down three black people and then turned the gun on himself.

The gunman had previous mental health concerns and left behind a racist manifesto.

Hawaiian Electric lawsuit » Maui County is suing Hawaiian Electric after company power lines sparked the recent devastating wildfires.

One local resident recalled hearing a loud pop from across the street.

RESIDENT: I look, there's a power line right there. It was just arching away on the ground, landed right in dry grass, so sparks, and then there was a fire.

Hawaiian Electric has admitted that their line ignited the first blaze. But the company said power to that area had been shut down for hours when the second blaze started, meaning firefighters failed to totally extinguish the first fire. And from there, it grew into fast-moving, mammoth wildfire. One of the deadliest in U.S. history.

Hawaiian Electric is facing dozens of lawsuits in the wake of the disaster.

Biden poll » Most Americans believe President Biden is too old for the Oval Office, according to a new poll. WORLD’s Josh Schumacher reports:

JOSH SCHUMACHER: The Associated Press/NORC poll surveyed more than a thousand Americans.

77 percent said the 80-year-old president is too old to serve another term in the White House.

Nine out of 10 Republicans said so, and seven out of 10 Democrats agreed.

By contrast, even though former President Donald Trump is only three years younger, only about half of the respondents felt that Trump is too old to serve.

For WORLD, I’m Josh Schumacher.

NYC Migrants » In New York City, police are bracing for more protests this week over migrant shelters branching out and overflowing throughout the city.

Police arrested 5 protesters outside Mayor Eric Adams’ home over the weekend.

One resident told Fox-5 New York:

NYC RESIDENT: This is a very quiet neighborhood where there’s a school 50 feet away that kids are running around, sometimes unsupervised, because it’s such a safe area. And now it’s not safe.

Some say they’re concerned that many migrants arriving in the city have not been vetted.

More than 100,000 asylum seekers and other migrants have arrived in the city since the start of last year.

New York is a self-proclaimed sanctuary city. But Mayor Adams continues to call on the federal government for more help in dealing with the migrants crisis.

China visit » U.S. Commerce Secretary Gina Raimondo is in Beijing this morning for a second day of trade talks with Chinese leaders.

Amid heightened tensions between the two countries, Raimondo said Monday:

RAIMONDO: The U.S. and China share one of the most significant economic relationships in the world. And it is profoundly important that we manage that relationship responsibly.

Raimondo and her Chinese counterpart agreed to talk about the possibility of loosening controls on exports.

And both governments agreed to put together a group of government and business leaders to help find more common ground between Washington and Beijing on trade.

I'm Kristen Flavin.

Straight ahead: India wins the race to the south pole of the moon. Plus, praying for prodigal children.

This is The World and Everything in It.

MARY REICHARD, HOST: It’s Tuesday the 29th of August, 2023.

Glad to have you along for today’s edition of The World and Everything in It. Good morning, I’m Mary Reichard.

NICK EICHER, HOST: And I’m Nick Eicher. First up, Lunar law and order. It’s not a two player game anymore between the U.S. and Russia.

Back in 2009, China’s Chang’e 1 spacecraft crash-landed on the moon after mapping the surface. Then in 2019, Chang’e 4 made history as the first moon rover to visit the dark side of the moon.

AUDIO: Soft landing on the moon. India is on the moon.

EICHER: On Wednesday, India joined the club and went a step further, sending the first rover to explore the moon’s south pole.

SOUND: [Cheering]

Days earlier, Russia lost contact with its Luna 25 spacecraft during a pre-landing orbit. Officials later confirmed that it crashed into the moon’s surface.

What are these nations trying to accomplish, and what does it mean for the moon?

Joining us now to talk about it is Michelle Hanlon. She’s a professor and co-director of the Air and Space Law Program at the University of Mississippi School of Law.

REICHARD: Michelle, thanks for joining us!

MICHELLE HANLON: Hi, Mary. Thanks for having me.

REICHARD: Let’s start with Russia. Until April of last year, Russia’s space agency Roscosmos planned to collaborate with the European Space Agency for this recent mission, but when Russia invaded Ukraine, the EU cut ties. Two questions: What’s Roscosmos been doing since then? And how does this recent crash-landing affect its plans?

HANLON: So Roscosmos has been really affected by the war in Ukraine, because they literally have no funding. And so when the European Space Agency pulled out of the opportunity to fly with Russia on this Luna 25 mission, it was pretty devastating for Roscosmos. What's interesting about Roscosmos now is they actually made the point of speeding up their plans in order to beat India. And it's sort of like we're living still in that cold war, Space Race era, thinking it's about prestige. And they didn't think about the science, or the opportunity or the exploration. They just thought, "Okay, we've got to beat India. Otherwise, we're going to lose our space creds." And so fundamentally, by not achieving that simple goal, soft landing before India, it set itself back on the prestige stage. And it is not anywhere near in the race anymore.

REICHARD: Well, India joined the Artemis Accords back in July. Remind us of what the Artemis Accords are and why it’s significant that India is now a member?

HANLON: Of course, the Artemis Accords are an incredible international multilateral instrument. It's not a binding treaty. It's a set of guidelines and principles. The United States basically met with four or five or six of its closest allies during COVID and said, Look, we need to get back to the moon, we need to do this collaboratively, as an international community. And we see a lot of flaws in existing law, governing things like how we're going to actually interact with each other when we're all on the moon. And so we're going to create these guidelines. This is how we think we ought to act. They're aspirational, inspirational goals. And among them, basically, they support what is already existing the Outer Space Treaty and its progeny that and these are binding multilateral treaties that Russia, China, India and all the spacefaring nations and many non-spacefaring nations have signed and the Artemis accords just take them a little step further. They say, well, the article two of the Outer Space Treaty says you can't own property, you can't claim territory in space. So hey, we're going to interpret that to say, well, you can't claim territory, but you can extract resources and use them.

So the Artemis Accords are now been signed or or acceded to by 28 nations, including India. And when we think about geopolitics and the space race of the United States is the the leader if you will of the Artemis program and the Artemis Accords, and it's has hand held its hands out to the world. Well, China has also decided, well, we're going to do something too. So China has this International Lunar Research Station. And they have announced that they have partnered with Russia. Russia was its initial founding partner. And Venezuela has also joined that effort. And I believe the UAE has as well.

And so for India to join the U.S. effort, U.S.-led effort sort of indicates an interesting balance. It was very intent on being sort of neutral in this space race, but clearly decided, okay, we like the principles that are stated in the Artemis Accords. We like the countries that have ratified the Artemis Accords. We think the Artemis accords will be supportive of what we're doing. That doesn't mean they can't also join China at later at some later time. But it is a huge boon to have 28 nations, which include India, as part of the Artemis Accords.

REICHARD: Turning now to India’s moon mission, why did the Indian Space Research Organization send the Chandrayaan-3 lunar rover to the moon’s south pole?

HANLON: So first of all, I just want to, you know, celebrate what India has accomplished. It is the first country to soft land a vehicle on the south pole of the moon. And why is this significant? First of all, nobody's ever done it. And we saw you know how hard it is Russia couldn't make it. But secondly, this is where the resources on the moon are the most readily available and easy to access. And it was Chandrayaan 1 which actually confirmed to us that there is water on the moon, opening up this entire new concept of how we're going to use the moon. One of the reasons we didn't go back to the moon after 1972 was because it was hard to get to and very expensive and it would be impossible to set up a installation or a research station if there weren't some resources we could use on the moon to support those. Well, finding water is a game changer. And then we determined that most of the water is or the the easiest and most accessible water is down on the South Pole. So this mission is incredibly important, so that we can understand what what does the water really look like? We don't know, we haven't sent anything down in those craters. And how easily accessible is it? Will we be able to mine it?

REICHARD: Well, final question here Michelle. How do property rights work on the moon? You mentioned earlier things need to change as more countries work towards moving in.

HANLON: Property rights. Hahaha. Let me first start by saying if you have a certificate that says you own a piece of the moon, you got swindled. Okay, nobody owns a piece of the moon. That, as I noted, Article Two says you cannot, a state cannot claim territory in outer space. And I told you already United States and 28 nations of the Artemis accords have said it means we're not going to claim territory but we can extract the resources and use them and sell them, do whatever we want with them. But what is this concept of property? The declaration, the United Nations Declaration of Human Rights states that every human has the right to own property. Doesn't that follow us into space? And so what does that mean against Article Two which says you can't claim territory while claiming territory? Can you claim territory as an individual? I would argue yes. I have very close colleagues who would argue no. These are the questions that we have to identify and solve. These are the questions we have to answer as we get closer and closer to this, this new era where we have people living and working on the moon.

REICHARD: So much to learn. Michelle Hanlon is a professor and co-directs the Air and Space Law Program at the University of Mississippi. Thank you for joining us! Fascinating.

HANLON: Thank you, Mary. It was fun.

MARY REICHARD, HOST: Coming up next on The World and Everything in It: BRICS adds new members.

You likely saw that headline in your newsfeed this past week. BRICS is an acronym for the names of five countries with an informal economic association. Those nations are Brazil, Russia, India, China, and South Africa.

NICK EICHER, HOST: Last week, the group held its annual meeting in South Africa and invited six new members to join the group. Those countries are Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates, Ethiopia, Egypt, Argentina, and surprisingly, Iran.

Joining us now to talk about what’s going on is Josh Bierenbaum. He’s the deputy director of the Center on Economic and Financial Power for the Foundation for the Defense of Democracies in Washington D.C.

REICHARD: Josh, good morning!

JOSH BIERENBAUM: Good morning. Thanks so much for having me, Mary.

REICHARD: These five nations seem like odd bedfellows. Again, Brazil, Russia, India, China, and South Africa. Where did that alliance come from?

BIERENBAUM: You're absolutely right, that they are an odd fit together. And to some extent, this is an accidental organization, and that really shows from the way that their interests are divergent. BRICS, which originally was BRIC, was coined by a Goldman Sachs economist. And then after the fact, it was picked up on by the group of nations. It's a little bit like coming up with a great title for a book, and then you have to write a book to justify the title. These countries have never really fit together particularly well. But they do much less now than in 2009 when they first came together. It's mostly at this point a symbolic union that demonstrates discontent with the West and the United States-led democracies. But for the most part, there's been very little to show for their actions over the last decade and a half.

EICHER: How does BRICS differ from the G7, not just in who the members are, but in their approach to global economics?

BIERENBAUM: I mean, the G7 itself is a bit of an informal group. It doesn't have its own Secretary General, it doesn't have its own bureaucracy behind it. It's an opportunity for the leading core democracies to get together and align their economic interests and their political interests. One might recall that as recently as 2014, it was the G8 and Russia was a member. Bill Clinton had invited Russia to join the group when Boris Yeltsin was president in the hopes that that would open up Russia to Western influence. As we can tell, that hasn't worked out. And Russia was kicked out of the group in 2014 by Obama and the other leaders of the G7 nations after the invasion of Crimea. So the, the G7 has been focused on trying to build a core democratic response to global pandemics, economic shocks and similar issues. BRICS, by contrast, is really focused on trying to counter American and democratic interests in the world. 

REICHARD: Let’s talk about the new kids on the block. Three countries from the middle east, two from Africa, and one from South America. Why these six new additions? What do they bring to the table?

BIERENBAUM: To some extent they represent a compromise. The countries of Russia and China were very eager to add new members, mostly to be able to be seen on the global stage as leaders that were worthy of having a unified front against sanctioning countries such as the U.S. and European nations. But Brazil and India, on the other hand, really didn't want to increase the size of the group and dilute its membership that much, and they certainly didn't want the group to become more authoritarian. These countries are somewhat authoritarian. Iran is absolutely authoritarian, Saudi Arabia, UAE as well, but they also had some economic interests that work well, with all five of the nations mostly in the energy sector and critical minerals. You have now three of the top oil and gas producers as members of BRICS. And you have starting to be a group of critical mineral producers and refiners that's formidable addressing industries, lithium, manganese, graphite, nickel, copper, all major producers and, and refiners and that creates in some ways the biggest threat the BRICS presents.

EICHER: I’m wondering what this expanded bloc means for Western sanctions on Russia and Iran. What do you think?

BIERENBAUM: Well, there's no doubt that Russia and China are seeking desperately to have alternative financial means to circumvent sanctions. Many people are aware that the Swift banking messaging system that is relied on by most economies in the world recently kicked Russia out as part of the sanctions package against the regime. And Russia, China and others are wary of the way in which sanctions can be used against countries that block the financial sector, so they're seeking to find different avenues for currency to circumvent the use of the U.S. dollar. Most indications are, while the group would like to build a currency, that's a BRICS currency for the members, there are a lot of hurdles to that happening. And if you ask the members of the EU, it wasn't easy for them to do when they are much more geographically politically aligned.

REICHARD: Final question here, Josh. Is there any aspect of this story that the mainstream media is overlooking?

BIERENBAUM: Well, I think there are two things that are really fascinating here. One is the amount of animosity between the BRICS nations that sort of papered over. China and India do not get along. They have military skirmishes along their borders. Ethiopia and Egypt have massive disputes over water, and Saudi Arabia and Iran have a long history of animosity between those countries. So while it would be in their interest for everyone to get along well, there's no indication that they've taken any steps to address those animosities. The other thing that I think is fascinating is who hasn't joined. There were a number of countries that have expressed interest. Some of them were non-starters, Afghanistan, Venezuela, Cuba, Bangladesh, Sudan. But a number of them would have been real threats to US national and economic security, mostly Indonesia, Mexico, and Turkey. The absence of those countries in this group is significant and important for the US and its allies.

REICHARD: Josh Bierenbaum is deputy director of the Center on Economic and Financial Power for the Foundation for the Defense of Democracies in Washington D.C. Josh, we appreciate your time. Thanks so much!

BIERENBAUM: Thanks for having me.

NICK EICHER, HOST: A little girl from Texas thought she’d lost her best friend forever.

VALENTINA DOMINGUEZ: She has brown hair. She has like my color skin.

and a rainbow shirt. She’s an American Girl doll who belongs to 9-year-old Valentina Dominguez. She’d left the doll behind on a plane thousands of miles from home in Tokyo.

But thanks to a social media post, and a friend of a friend of a friend, an unlikely reunion.

JAMES DANEN: I was glad that I could do something nice for somebody. I like helping people. I mean, that’s what I like doing.

American Airlines pilot James Danen. He flies that route. He lives in Texas. So he was able to make it happen.

Danen picked up the doll from a Turkish Air lost and found and started the nearly 6-thousand-mile trip home.

And when he got there, so was the Dallas TV station WFAA.

DOMINGUEZ: Beatrice! Thank you so much.

DANEN: And I brought you a picture. This is what she looked like looking out the window, going across the North Atlantic.

Valentina hugged her doll and asked the Good Samaritan pilot an important question.

DOMINGUEZ: Was she well behaved on the flight?

DANEN: Very well behaved, yes.

MARY REICHARD, HOST: Priorities straight!

EICHER: It’s The World and Everything in It.

MARY REICHARD, HOST: Today is Tuesday, August 29th. You’re listening to WORLD Radio and we’re so glad you are! Good morning. I’m Mary Reichard.

NICK EICHER, HOST: And I’m Nick Eicher. Coming next on The World and Everything in It: Prodigals.

A recent survey says 1 in 10 adults have cut off contact with either a parent or a child. The complicated and often painful dynamic is nothing new. This kind of family estrangement goes all the way back to the Old Testament stories of Joseph and his brothers or King David and his son Absolom.

REICHARD: And just like the father in the parable of the prodigal son, many parents of prodigals today are also waiting faithfully for their children and loved ones to return. WORLD's Myrna Brown met a few of them and has their story.

MYRNA BROWN CORRESPONDENT: Three and half years ago, when COVID shuttered churches around the world, a small group of men and women in Georgia started praying daily online.

ROB FROEHBRODT: Initially we covered the gamut of everything in terms of prayer topics.

That’s one of the prayer warriors, Rob Froehbrodt. Today the 68-year-old is leading what’s become an offshoot of the early morning online prayer.

FROEHBRODT: A week hasn’t gone by for the last, I’d say a year and a half, where at least one or two days of the week or more, prodigals are brought up. And we have a prodigal list.

TINA PRAYING ON ZOOM CALL: Lord, 39 years ago I held Daniel for the first time, and Father he’s gone so far from you...

ROBIN PRAYING ON ZOOM CALL: And so Lord, I bring Andrea and McKenzie, my brother Jim…

BETH PRAYING ON ZOOM CALL: And I lift them up to you that you may fill their heart with longing for you.

FROEHBRODT PRAYING ON ZOOM CALL: Father, the path that he’s gone off now as a 43-year-old man, the choices he’s made, the faith that he’s stepped away from…

In 2020, Froehbrodt’s first-born left his home, his wife, and their three teenage children. Since then, Froehbrodt says his interaction with his son has been limited to brief phone conversations.

FROEHBRODT: It caused a level of pain we had never felt before. We never thought we’d be that family.

And he isn't alone.

JAMES BANKS: Thank you. Good Morning. It is so good to be here.

James Banks lives in North Carolina. The author, pastor, and speaker has written and spoken extensively on prodigals and family estrangement.

JAMES BANKS: The only thing that makes me an expert in this is the unwanted experience of having a son who was an addict and a daughter who was a runaway and God used all of that I think to forge experiences in us that led to a book that would become a bestseller.

Eleven years ago, Banks wrote Prayers for Prodigals, 90 days of scripture-based prayers.

JAMES BANKS: And yes, they are absolutely prayers that I prayed as I was writing them. My son was addicted to opioids and eventually that led to his becoming a heroin addict and he shared needles. He was in and out of jail, in and out of the courtroom. He stole from his family and from his closest friends.

Banks says he also made mistakes as the parent of two prodigals. He second guessed himself and made comparisons.

JAMES BANKS: When you’re a parent of a you sometimes feel like oh, if only I’d done something differently. Often you have these bumper sticker conversations with people. My child is an honor student at, and you wonder where you went wrong.

He says he also failed to remember how a gentle answer turns away wrath.

JAMES BANKS: I think of sermons that I preached to my kids when they were going down the wrong road that were unkind and angry and that certainly didn’t reach them.

Banks says what helped was constant and corporate prayer, like the online prayer group in Georgia.

JAMES BANKS: Never give up. Always keep praying and that’s hard, but when you go to the word of God and let that empower your prayers, then there’s a new strength there. And keep in mind, no one can pray for a prodigal like a parent can. That’s why we need to be grouped with others who have had the same experience. And united prayer is a powerful thing. We have seen so many prodigals return because of it.

GEOFFREY BANKS: But again what I want to submit to you guys today is identity is something each and every one of us struggles with at some point. Every single one of us.

That’s Geoffrey Banks, James Bank’s son. He’s now 32 years old, drug-free for more than a decade, married and working as the high school pastor for his local church. Looking back, the dark-haired, slender Banks says it was easy to live like a prodigal.

GEOFFREY BANKS: It is much easier to be estranged. It’s much easier to pull out of a relationship. It’s much easier to not have contact. And I would just encourage anyone who’s struggling through something like this to maybe go down the hard path in this area and build a relationship. And not just your relationship with your parents. I always encourage people to do away with everything they think they know about God. Do away with everything they think they know about what it means to be a Christian or what it means to follow Jesus and go read one of the Gospels, Matthew, Mark, Luke and John and look at what Jesus actually taught and actually said.

It’s advice that his dad, James Banks, prays his daughter will hear and heed one day.

JAMES BANKS: She’s not home yet. I would say she is turning from the far country. I can see her coming from a distance but she’s not home yet.

Another name on the prodigal prayer list.

ZOOM PRAYER ROBIN: Lord your word says you shall know the truth and the truth will set you free. We pray that over our prodigals.

Reporting for WORLD, I’m Myrna Brown in Lawrenceville, Georgia.

NICK EICHER, HOST: Today is Tuesday, August 29th. Good morning! This is The World and Everything in It from listener-supported WORLD Radio. I’m Nick Eicher.

MARY REICHARD, HOST: And I’m Mary Reichard. Up next: WORLD Opinions writer Ericka Andersen on Italy’s new surrogacy law.

ERICKA ANDERSEN, COMMENTATOR: The United States is a pioneer when it comes to legalizing surrogate pregnancy. Italy, however, is going a different route as it assesses the morality of the practice. Surrogacy is a practice of paying women to grow and birth another’s baby and it’s illegal in the conservative run country. But Italian Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni doesn’t think that goes far enough. A new bill in process would criminalize Italian citizens who travel abroad to obtain babies born via foreign surrogates. 

It may sound far-fetched to be prosecuted for something done outside of your own country, but it’s not unheard of. For example, it’s illegal for an American citizen to engage in sex with a minor on a foreign land, and they can be prosecuted at home. When it comes to children, we shouldn’t take crime lightly. And both of these examples ban practices that are harmful to them specifically. Meloni supporter and centrist lawmaker Maurizio Lupi put it best, saying “we strenuously say ‘no’ to the sale of children.” Lupi called surrogacy “the most extreme form of commercialization of the body.” 

In a Western world, where personal autonomy is the highest good and objective morality has been all but erased, people are often blind to universal virtue and objective ethical standards.

To progressives both in the United States and abroad, “consent” is the supreme bodily value. However, we must note that surrogacy employment is rife with manipulation tactics backed by wads of cash. The definition of human trafficking is “the use of force, fraud, or coercion to obtain some type of labor or commercial sex act.” No matter how willingly one consents to the use of her body in this way, $50,000 is coercion to a poor woman every time. 

Furthermore, the factory production of babies as ordered by anyone who wants them invokes numerous moral and ethical questions. With surrogacy, individuals with enough money can purchase eggs from one woman and a womb from another and grow a child whom they legally take home at the end of the experience—no background checks or child welfare concerns to speak of. There is no world in which this should be legal. 

The Meloni government is not backing down, refusing even now to issue Italian birth certificates to babies born via surrogates overseas, according to The New York Times. The Times reported on one same-sex couple affected by this move, their new baby caught in the legal limbo of the law. One of the men profiled noted that “the most important thing … is that he is our son.” 

Though he may love the child, that is not the most important thing here, and it proves the point of anti-surrogate Italian leaders. The most important thing here should be the rights of a child which those who pursue, promote, and permit surrogacy completely disregard.   

The couple in the Times story rented a uterus and then ripped the child away from the only home he’d ever known—the body of his physical mother. This surrogate mother, the one whose heartbeat he synced, whose voice he knew, whose smell he found comfort in, was taken from him in an instant so this couple could make their dreams come true. All the while, the men presume that mothers don’t matter. Not biological mothers, not physical mothers, not adoptive mothers.

It is not fair or ethical to intentionally create a baby in this fashion, purposely depriving him of his right to both parents. 

Meloni understands the social and psychological imperative of an intact, biological family as a child’s best hope for flourishing. This is not to say that children who are adopted, part of divorce, or born to single mothers are unable to thrive or succeed. When hard things happen, we’re responsible for making the best of a difficult situation—and we do. But the premise of surrogacy is separation, trauma, and deprivation. As humans and civilized society, our aim should be to protect the most innocent and vulnerable, not create them to inflict damage. 

There’s a reason for-profit surrogacy is banned in Italy, Canada, Denmark, New Zealand, Brazil, Britain, and Australia, among other countries. Is Italy overstepping her bounds by making overseas surrogacy a crime for Italian citizens? I guess it depends on whether you think human dignity ends at the border.

I’m Ericka Andersen.

NICK EICHER, HOST: Tomorrow: Congress is back to working on appropriations bills. We’ll have a report from WORLD’s Washington Bureau about it.

And how some people are helping kids overcome social anxiety— so severe, that they cannot speak in school.

That and more tomorrow. I’m Nick Eicher.

MARY REICHARD, HOST: And I’m Mary Reichard.

The World and Everything in It comes to you from WORLD Radio. WORLD’s mission is biblically objective journalism that informs, educates, and inspires.

The Bible records that [Jesus] “was teaching daily in the temple. The chief priests and the scribes and the principal men of the people were seeking to destroy him, but they did not find anything they could do, for all the people were hanging on his words.” Luke chapter 19, verses 47 and 48.

Go now in grace and peace.

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