Them Before Us grades all 50 states on child protection in family law

The children’s rights organization Them Before Us released a new state-by-state scorecard May 19 that grades every state, plus Washington, D.C., on its protection of children’s fundamental right to their biological mother and father. 

The group, which advocates for child-centered family policy, said its interactive Children’s Rights Scorecard evaluates states across four major areas: parentage law, surrogacy, donor conception and in-vitro fertilization, and marriage and divorce law. 

According to the report, the scorecard reviews 19 criteria and gives states credit for policies that protect children’s rights. Those include laws that retain “mother” and “father” language, regulate donor anonymity, and limit the number of children created by a single donor. 

The scorecard docks states for policies the group argues weaken those ties, including laws that permit more than two legal parents, allow commercial surrogacy, recognize a “right” to in-vitro fertilization, or allow no-fault divorce.

“Every child who has ever lost a parent to divorce, been created by an anonymous sperm donor, or been handed to strangers at birth through a surrogacy arrangement knows something the rest of us too easily forget: family law is not abstract,” Them Before Us said in a statement. “It lands on real children. It shapes real lives.”

The group emphasized that the scorecard is intended to give lawmakers, parents, and activists a clearer way to evaluate state family policies. The organization described the results as “sobering” and “clarifying,” and argued the report should not be read as a strictly partisan analysis. Many Republican-led states, it noted, have adopted policies that put adult desires ahead of children’s rights.

CatholicVote Director of Government Affairs Tom McClusky echoed that point, saying the report shows child protection in family law does not always follow party lines.

“Them Before Us doesn’t care about political party or any other agenda beyond, ‘What does this state do to protect children?’” McClusky said. “The conclusion is that there is a lot of work left to do for legislators, activists, and parents to protect children better.”

Nebraska earns top score; Washington, D.C., receives lowest 

Nebraska received the highest grade in the country, earning an A-. Four states — Indiana, Arizona, Kentucky, and Missouri — received the next-highest scores, each earning a B. 

Washington, D.C., received the lowest grade, an F. Maine, Washington state, Hawaii, and California also ranked near the bottom of the scorecard. 

Other key findings:

• 17 states have replaced “mother” and “father” with gender-neutral “parent” language in some or all family laws

• 28 states permit intent-based parentage, which allows adults to claim legal rights to children without biological ties or a full adoption process 

• 10 states allow more than two legal parents for a child

• Only three states have banned commercial gestational surrogacy, an arrangement in which a woman is paid to carry a child who is not genetically related to her. Twenty-five states and Washington, D.C., have legalized commercial gestational surrogacy. 

• 13 states and Washington, D.C., have legalized commercial genetic surrogacy, in which the surrogate is both the birth mother and the child’s genetic mother

Report highlights children affected by family-law policies

The report also includes testimony from people that Them Before Us says were harmed by some of the policies evaluated in the scorecard.

One of the examples cited is Kat Quire, whom the group says was commissioned through genetic surrogacy and sperm donation by a known child abuser who had already lost custody of another child. According to the group, Quire was later abused and trafficked by the man who obtained parental rights through contracts and intent-based parentage.

Olivia, a child of genetic surrogacy, said that she lived with the feeling that “I was abandoned by my birth mother,” according to the report. 

“There’s nothing worse than for a child to feel that at one moment in my life I was literally sold for a check,” she said.

Ellie, who was donor-conceived, argued that donor conception can deprive children of “some pretty basic human rights,” including biological identity, medical history, and connections to extended family.

“Donor conception has caused this donor-conceived person enough grief that I actively speak out against any donor conception to friends considering this route as a way to solve their own infertility grief,” Ellie said in the report. “It doesn’t resolve the grief, but rather passes that pain on to the next generation by denying them access to their missing biological family.”