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Is protectionism paying off? President Donald Trump is trumpeting the announcement of a new steel mill in Iowa, promising 1,750 jobs, as evidence of the gains from his trade wars. America is successful; but it succeeds despite the trade wars, not because of them.

Is protectionism paying off? President Donald Trump is trumpeting the announcement of a new steel mill in Iowa, promising 1,750 jobs, as evidence of the gains from his trade wars. America is successful; but it succeeds despite the trade wars, not because of them.

America exported more in 2025 than ever before. American business exported $3.4 trillion in goods and services, according to the Census Bureau. That’s up from the previous year’s record of $3.2 trillion. Americans exported more in 2025 than all but five other countries produced. The extra tariffs placed on American products in response to new American tariffs are headwinds against this trend.

A commonly held opinion says that the United States can’t compete on the world stage. That other countries prop up their industries with subsidies and tariffs that penalize American producers. That other countries are fine with brutalizing workers to flood the market with cheap goods to shut down U.S manufacturers. And so free trade will just leave American industry to rot.

But look at the scoreboard. America is not behind.

As stated, exports are at record levels. They’ve grown a lot, too. American exports twice what it did in 2002, adjusted for inflation.

No other big country is anywhere near the United States for median income.

The country keeps adding jobs. There are 158.5 million jobs in America, and 2025 had another record high.

The total value of economic production, adjusted for inflation, is also at record highs. The country produces two times what it did in 1996.

Let me share one other piece of evidence about the global demand for American things. There is a game I like to play using the Street View feature of Google Maps. I go to a far flung city I haven’t heard of before, and I search the streets for something American. It could be someone driving a Chevy. It could be a Coca-Cola machine, a restaurant serving American food — often promoted in English, regardless of the local language. It rarely takes long to find something. Here is a man wearing a LeBron James t-shirt in the city of Baguio in the Philippines. America offers a lot that people around the world want.

This isn’t what happens to a country whose glory days are in the past. It isn’t what happens when you’re being taken advantage of through exploitative global competition. It’s not what happens to a deindustrialized country gone to pot.

In other words, American officials started a trade war under false pretenses. The American public is paying a price for it.

You can find evidence at your kitchen table. Americans insist on being within arm’s length of black pepper when having their meals, though few of them have seen the plant that the spice comes from. The peppercorn comes from a tropical vine, and much of the crop comes to America from Vietnam. 
It is subject to new tariffs. I don’t think we’re protecting American domestic black pepper farmers.

The effects of tariffs on black pepper trickle throughout the economy. Food processors, wholesalers, distributors, grocers and restauranteurs use black pepper. The spice doesn’t get into spork packets by mistake, and now it’s more expensive for everyone involved.

Trade policy hasn’t been enough to keep black pepper off the American table, and the trade wars haven’t been enough to stop the broader forces of American growth. Income, employment, production and exports are at record levels. But that’s despite the trade wars, not because of them.

Lawmakers should stop playing pretend that America is falling behind. Perhaps if they do, they will notice that their attempts to level the playing field with tariffs have tilted the competitive environment against Americans. The country has done well and will do better without all the self-defeating tariffs.

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James M. Hohman is the director of fiscal policy at the Mackinac Center for Public Policy.

The pardoning of Elor Azaria, a former Israeli soldier convicted of killing a wounded Palestinian man in the occupied West Bank, comes with a history.

(THE CONVERSATION) — The pardoning of Elor Azaria, a former Israeli soldier convicted of killing a wounded Palestinian man in the occupied West Bank, comes with a history.

Israeli President Isaac Herzog’s decision itself – announced on Sept. 19, 2026 – came more than eight years after Azaria left prison.

The immediate effect is that it clears Azaria of his criminal record. But its public significance is broader – and reaches much further back.

I study how Israelis have talked about Palestinian lives and deaths over the past century. In my forthcoming book, I trace a recurring idea: Palestinians are viewed as an obstacle to Israel’s territorial and security goals, and whose removal can be imagined as necessary or justified. Azaria’s pardon fits into this notion, showing how the state’s response to killing Palestinians can be expressed through the language of mercy for the perpetrator – and it is a pattern that goes back almost 80 years.

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A killing caught on camera

The details of Azaria’s case are fairly straightforward. On March 24, 2016, Abdel Fattah al-Sharif and another Palestinian armed with knives attacked an Israeli soldier in Hebron, in the occupied West Bank. Al-Sharif was shot and lay wounded on the ground. Minutes later, Azaria approached and shot him in the head.

Video of the killing circulated widely. An Israeli military court convicted Azaria of manslaughter in 2017 and sentenced him to 18 months in prison. He was released after serving nine months.

Justifying his decision, Herzog’s office cited the years that had passed, Azaria’s expression of sorrow in his application for a pardon, and the approach of Yom Kippur, the Jewish Day of Atonement.

Yet Azaria had said after his release that he would act the same way again. While the conviction will remain part of the historical record, the pardon removes any lasting consequence for him.

Herzog’s decision was warmly received by some in Israel, where Azaria’s case had been taken up by the political right.

For human rights watchers, it is a worrying development. “The president’s decision is a clear demonstration that the Israeli justice system is neither willing nor able to enforce the law against soldiers who harm Palestinians,” noted Ziv Stahl, director of the Israeli human rights group Yesh Din.

However unequal that may appear to critics now, it is a trend with precedents reaching back to Israel’s founding.

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Clemency after the 1948 war

During the Arab-Israeli war between 1947 and 1949, some 750,000 Palestinians were uprooted from their homes. It was an expulsion that could not have happened without extreme violence, including dozens of massacres by Zionist militias and Israeli army.

The perpetrators were rarely, if ever, punished.

In November 1948, though, Israeli soldiers killed civilians in Hula, a village in Lebanon. This time, the direct commander of the operation arrested the officer who ordered the massacre and complained about him. An Israeli military court convicted company commander Shmuel Lahis of murdering 15 people and sentenced him to seven years in prison.

On appeal, his sentence was reduced to one year. Israel’s first president, Chaim Weizmann, then canceled his prison sentence in 1950.

Five years later, President Yitzhak Ben-Zvi pardoned Lahis. Decades later, in 1978, Lahis was appointed director general of the Jewish Agency, the primary Zionist organization promoting Jewish immigration and settlement in Israel.

These were distinct decisions, but together they show how a conviction for murdering Arab civilians eventually lost its practical and lasting consequences.

The Lahis case nevertheless established an early precedent for leniency toward an Israeli soldier convicted of murdering Arab civilians. It continued in the years that followed, when Israel, for several years after its independence, pursued an unofficial policy of shooting Palestinian refugees who attempted to return to their homes, their land, or the property they had left behind. Costing the lives of thousands until the mid-1950s, this unofficial open-fire policy turned the new border into a lethal instrument for making the results of the expulsion permanent.

That precedent became clearer after the massacre at Kafr Qasim.

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The two legacies of Kafr Qasim

On Oct. 29, 1956, Israeli Border Police killed Palestinian citizens of Israel returning home to Kafr Qasim, a village 12 miles (19 km) from Tel Aviv. Authorities had moved the start of a curfew forward without ensuring that villagers working outside knew about it. In all, Israeli troops killed 47 people. In the trial that followed, eight troops were convicted of murder and sentenced to prison terms ranging from seven to 17 years.

The ensuing military trial produced a principle taught for decades later in Israel: Soldiers must refuse an order that is manifestly illegal.

What happened after the convictions is less often remembered. The prison terms were reduced on appeal and, for some, reduced again by the military chief of staff. In November 1959, President Ben-Zvi shortened the sentences of the last two men still in prison, Shmuel Malinki and Gavriel Dahan. Both were released by March 1960. Less than 18 months after sentencing, every person convicted in the main trial was free.

Kafr Qasim, thus, left two legacies: The court drew a boundary against unlawful killing while other state authorities sharply limited the consequences for crossing it.

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Lenient punishment beyond pardons

The pattern did not end with those early cases. Since the first Palestinian intifada, or uprising, began in 1987, human rights organizations have documented how seldom investigations into Israeli soldiers’ killings of Palestinians resulted in prosecution.

From the beginning of the second intifada in 2000 through March 2011, Israeli forces in the West Bank and the Gaza Strip killed at least 3,024 Palestinians who were not taking part in combat, according to the Israeli human rights organization B’Tselem. Of all such incidents, only 12 soldiers were indicted, and not a single one was convicted of murder.

My research points to the same pattern across a longer period. Throughout Israel’s history, even in the rare cases of conviction of a soldier or a policeman for killing Palestinians, the maximum time a perpetrator spent in prison was three years and four months.

This measures time served, rather than the sentences initially announced by courts – a distinction made especially clear by Kafr Qasim and reinforced by the Azaria case today. After all, the former military medic served just nine months of an 18-month sentence for the killing of a wounded Palestinian. 
And even then, was deemed to be suitable for a pardon.

In so doing, Herzog is nodding to the past, but also signaling to soldiers on the ground today that killing a Palestinian is forgivable. The pardon transforms what is sometimes presented as an aberration into part of the state’s moral order.

With Election Day 2026 just weeks away and control of Congress hanging in the balance, the results will almost certainly hinge on voter turnout, just as they did in 2024.

(THE CONVERSATION) — With Election Day 2026 just weeks away and control of Congress hanging in the balance, the results will almost certainly hinge on voter turnout, just as they did in 2024.

Given that genuinely undecided voters are scarce — as little as 5% to 7% of the electorate, according to major polls — both Democrats and Republicans must look to mobilize their rank-and-file supporters. To do so, the Republican Party has bet strongly this year on a strategy of convincing people that voter fraud is rampant.

As a scholar of U.S. politics, I see this as a high-risk strategy for Republican candidates and American democracy. That’s because reduced trust in election integrity can reduce motivation to vote – even if based on flawed information. But it’s not at all clear which Americans are most likely to stay home in November.

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Voter fraud vs. reality

Voter fraud is not a real problem in the United States. Study after study, by public officials and think tanks, has shown that voting by noncitizens and other ineligible voters happens only at minuscule, statistically insignificant levels.

Nonetheless, rhetoric from the Trump administration about voter fraud has been pervasive. Consider the recent claim by Homeland Security Secretary Markwayne Mullin that Nevada had nearly 16,000 noncitizens on its voter rolls – a number reduced to 185 when state authorities pressed for details, and reduced to zero when the state investigated the names provided.

There is comparable behavior from Congress. My own research on political communication has shown that a substantial number of members of Congress, strongly skewing Republican, make frequent use of rhetoric that undermines democratic norms and delegitimizes political institutions.

The strategy ties readily into President Donald Trump’s persistent false claims that he won the 2020 presidential election. It also ties into his administration’s strongly anti-immigrant agenda, which spreads fear of noncitizens corrupting U.S. politics.

How does this uncertain political environment influence voters?

There is clear data showing that voter confidence in elections has fallen across party lines: Only 65% of Republicans, 64% of Democrats and 57% of independent voters are very or somewhat confident that the 2026 vote count will be reliable. Conventional wisdom suggests such discouraging numbers would depress turnout.

It’s not as simple as that, however.

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What motivates voters

Extensive research confirms the axiom that a sense of civic duty is the strongest predictor of whether someone will vote. It supersedes trust, partisanship and policy preferences.

Any campaign’s quest to mobilize additional voters, therefore, must find them among citizens without a strong sense of civic duty. But among these people, diminished trust in democratic processes can play out in counterintuitive ways.

Recent research on German voters is relevant to the U.S.: It shows that among more passive voters – those following cues from political elites – reduced trust in elections can depress motivation to vote. That’s because there’s no trustworthy result that voters are seeking to affirm.

Conversely, among voters with greater skepticism about elite messaging, reduced trust can motivate increased turnout as an attempted corrective for a flawed system.

What does this mean for potential voters in the U.S.? Among Republicans, it appears that the party’s strategy carries a strong risk of backlash.

Findings from MIT’s Election Lab confirm that cues from political elites are a powerful factor in voter behavior. Specifically, cues setting expectations of a disappointing or untrustworthy result will reduce motivation. Why vote if you don’t expect it to help achieve the desired result?

The same study finds Republican voters broadly inclined to believe GOP leaders’ cues about voter fraud and to frame their expectations accordingly. And once they’ve made that shift, they cling firmly to the belief, even in the face of contrary empirical evidence or messaging from within the party.

In the current election cycle, 50% of Republicans surveyed distrust mail-in voting, and 51% fear voting by noncitizens. They expect election results to be fraudulent. This likely won’t mobilize them, as there’s no positive result they can expect to affirm. The Republican Party’s messaging has painted its voters into a corner.

Democrats, meanwhile, are less inclined to believe claims of voter fraud. But they are more inclined to be concerned about attempts to undermine the midterms by political elites making such claims. Examples include the Trump administration’s efforts to sow doubt about voting by mail and about alleged noncitizen voting.

These efforts increase motivation to vote among Democrats. Unlike GOP voters, they see the capacity to correct for the system’s vulnerabilities – the potential and urgency to overwhelm attempts at voter suppression through higher turnout.

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Truth and trust

Opponents of Trump and the GOP may find these diverging effects encouraging. No matter the results this November, however, we’re left with a precarious dynamic. Increasing numbers of voters lack trust in elections and make their decisions to vote – or not – based on limited or flawed information.

Fortunately, there are signs of hope.

Although voters in general are poorly informed about how elections are conducted, they can and do respond to clear information familiarizing them with election processes.

I’ve seen this myself over the years, working with nonpartisan efforts to register young adults and train them as poll watchers. And in the current election cycle, there have already been widespread efforts to broaden public awareness about the fact that state officials, not federal ones, have authority over voter rolls and election security.

Meanwhile, fewer Americans are expected to vote by mail this year – whether due to fear of fraud or fear of the Post Office. If they instead vote in person, a silver lining is that positive personal experiences with poll workers are also associated with increased voter trust.

Looking beyond November, what Americans can hope for is a cycle in which clear election outcomes provide an opportunity to inform voters of how and why the system works. That’s the way to motivate more political engagement and voter turnout in the future.

Dolly Parton’s nephew Bryan Seaver announced the legendary singer’s death on Aug. 25, 2026, in a prerecorded video. Seaver, the son of one of Parton’s 11 siblings, had been her head of security for many years.

(THE CONVERSATION) — Dolly Parton’s nephew Bryan Seaver announced the legendary singer’s death on Aug. 25, 2026, in a prerecorded video. Seaver, the son of one of Parton’s 11 siblings, had been her head of security for many years.

But Seaver is currently embroiled in a messy dispute with She’s Alive LLC, the company Parton established to manage her business assets after her death.

This unusually acrimonious fight highlights some of the business succession problems that can arise when the founder of a company dies but wants its other leaders to keep it going.

Parton, a legendary American singer, actress, entrepreneur and philanthropist, left behind an estimated US$450 million estate.

She’s Alive LLC terminated Seaver’s involvement with the business, and a court has issued a restraining order against him. Seaver is accused of engaging in “an obscene, deliberate and escalating campaign of threats” against Parton’s estate. He denies the allegations.

As professors who research and teach topics related to inheritance law, we are fascinated by the Parton case. It illustrates some of the pitfalls of planning for the transition of a privately held business after the founder’s death – a concern for celebrity and noncelebrity estates alike.

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Managing celebrity estates after death

Celebrity estates, like Parton’s, are distinct because they often contain valuable intellectual property. This includes copyrights, which protect creative works, such as songs and recordings, including Parton’s catalog of hits. Another valuable asset in these estates are publicity rights, which protect the use of the celebrity’s name or likeness, such as the use of Parton’s face on a T-shirt sold for profit.

These rights can be enormously valuable long after the celebrity has died. Without careful planning beforehand and appropriate management after death, the estate may never get the full value of these property interests.

Prince, for example, died in 2016 without a will or any formal estate plan. The twice-divorced Minneapolis pop star had no surviving children. His estate passed to his siblings, who were his sole heirs.

It took more than six years to administer his complicated $156 million estate, which concluded with the heirs establishing corporate entities to manage his intellectual property rights. One of those entities, Prince Legacy LLC, recently became embroiled in litigation when some of Prince’s heirs sought to fire the managers who had been hired to manage their share of the intellectual property rights.

Marilyn Monroe, who died in 1962, also without any children, left behind a professionally drafted will under which her longtime acting coach, Lee Strasberg (and his then-wife) inherited most of her publicity rights. But Strasberg remarried, and his widow – a woman whom Monroe never met – hired various professional managers, including a company known as CMG Worldwide, which specializes in the management, marketing and promotion of publicity rights associated with dead celebrities.

Because of the successful management of her estate’s publicity rights, Monroe became known as one of the highest-paid dead celebrities – with large sums enriching a woman she’d never met.

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Should a founder’s relatives remain in charge?

Many much-less famous family businesses face similar questions about how to keep their profits and revenue flowing and who should manage the company after the founder of a family business dies.

A continuation of business operations may have many benefits for a deceased founder’s family. The founder may have relayed their succession plans to them. Relatives often have institutional knowledge and loyalties that can enhance the value of the business and make it last longer.

Studies have not conclusively shown, however, whether continuing a business within the family is clearly better or worse for its bottom line than having outsiders manage it.

As one study found, family managers often have a “sense of kinship obligation” and enjoy “personal and social fulfillment” from working together in the business. That, in turn, creates incentives to manage the firm carefully with an eye toward long-term survival.

By contrast, another study of small and medium-size businesses after the sudden death of a CEO-owner found that, in the short run, nonfamily successors are better equipped to run the company.

Relatives, by contrast, may be hampered by grief and the emotional impact of the death. But the study also found that in the long run, family members may be more successful in managing the business because they “are likely to view the firm’s survival as a way to stay connected with the deceased family member and keep their memory alive. In turn, this is expected to inspire great stewardship towards the firm.”

Other studies, however, have found that maintaining family control over the management of a company after its founder’s death can hurt its performance. Restricting the pool of potential managers to relatives excludes better-qualified candidates who can bring expertise and experience that members of the family lack. Research has shown that hiring pros tends to be best for the business.

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Death can be bad for business

When the owner of a privately held business dies, their assets, including real property, intellectual property and investments, will pass to others according to the estate plan, if the owner created one.

But in many cases, the true value of a business is more than just the sum of all its assets. Some of the value may reside in the owner’s talent, knowledge and business acumen.

In some cases, the owner maintained personal relationships with employees or customers that may have played a key operational role. In others, the owner may have relied upon unique personal qualities to achieve success in business. Parton herself, for example, was likely the most significant driver of value for her business because of her creativity and star power.

According to a 2022 study by economists who studied what happened to startups following the death of nearly 1,500 business founders, growth and profitability fell after the founder’s death.

Smaller companies are at risk of having to close altogether.

The study found that the negative effects on business continuity “appear to be driven by entrepreneur specialness rather than leadership transition,” which suggests that the founder’s unique contributions to the business can be difficult to replicate after death even with excellent transition planning.

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What this means for Parton’s estate

Parton’s full estate plan is not yet publicly known, but she did not have any children, and her husband died before her. According to court filings, Parton engaged in “extensive estate planning measures” that included trusts and various corporate entities to manage her business assets and intellectual property rights.

She gave generously to charity, with acclaimed gifts for medical research and disaster relief. She also created the Imagination Library through her Dollywood Foundation. It sends free books to millions of children from their birth until their fifth birthday.

The amount that anyone – family, friends or charities – will receive from the estate of a wealthy celebrity depends on how their business assets and intellectual property rights are managed after death. Parton planned carefully, but it is up to others to make the most of what she left behind.

If a person’s story changes in the weeks following an alleged sexual assault, are they not telling the truth?

(THE CONVERSATION) — If a person’s story changes in the weeks following an alleged sexual assault, are they not telling the truth?

It’s a criticism I’ve seen on social media and heard in the public conversation surrounding the lawsuit filed in September 2026 by a plaintiff known as Jane Doe, a former student at Cornell University, accusing seven male students of rape.

Initially, Doe discussed events with a friend but reportedly didn’t identify them as assault. It wasn’t until weeks later, when her experience was labeled as a gang rape by others, that she came forward to authorities.

Survivors are often questioned about how they relay their stories. When societal expectations about how rape survivors should respond do not align with the victim’s experience, it’s easy to assume that the victim is lying and the assailant is innocent.

Research indicates 60% to 70% of female rape survivors do not identify their experience as rape. That’s especially true for college students. Instead, rape survivors often describe their experience in more general terms, referring to it as “bad sex” or “miscommunication.” That’s both because of how sexual assault affects a survivor’s mind, brain and body and because of how society thinks about rape.

In my experience as a psychologist doing crisis intervention work with rape and sexual assault victims, it is very common for survivors to prefer to continue as if the assault never happened and to be driven by a strong desire to return to normalcy. While this seems counterintuitive, understanding the biological and psychological survival processes that sexual assault can activate may help explain why this response is perfectly logical.

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Trauma’s immediate impact

Immediately following a rape, survivors – whether they characterize their experience as rape or not – often experience myriad symptoms broadly referred to as rape trauma syndrome. These symptoms include self-blame, emotional dysregulation and feelings of fear and humiliation. These symptoms often lead to problems with sleep, headaches, muscle tension and fatigue.

Psychologists generally diagnose symptoms consistent with rape trauma syndrome as acute stress disorder. Acute stress disorder reflects the unique psychological reactions immediately following trauma, whereas the longer-term effects are characterized as post-traumatic stress disorder, or PTSD.

People with acute stress disorder experience at least nine symptoms across several categories, including avoidance of trauma reminders, persistent negative mood and dissociation – defined as a disconnection between thoughts, feelings and bodily sensations. Other symptoms include intrusive experiences like nightmares or flashbacks, feeling like they are reexperiencing the trauma, constantly being on high alert and having overly intense emotional reactions to reminders of the traumatic event.

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The brain on trauma

During acute stress, the brain shifts into survival mode.

Two of the main bodily systems activated during this period are the limbic system and the hypothalamic-pituitary-adrenal axis. The limbic system controls emotions, memory and behavior. The hypothalamic-pituitary-adrenal axis controls how the body responds to stress by regulating hormones like cortisol.

These systems mobilize the body’s key survival responses – fight, flight, freeze and fawn.

When the limbic system and hypothalamic-pituitary-adrenal axis kick in following trauma, the internal commotion that ensues takes over the brain’s ability to control thinking, planning and decision-making. This effectively prevents the brain from making accurate sense of what happened and from coping with the trauma in a healthy way.

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Self-blame and denial are protective

For rape survivors, a common outcome of this neurobiological storm is self-blame – a tendency to hold themselves responsible for the events that led to the trauma. Generally, people believe they live in a world that feels safe and predictable, and they tend to adhere to the just world hypothesis, which posits that good things happen to good people. To preserve the illusion of control, safety and predictability, survivors blame themselves in an effort to restore order to a world that has been incredibly shaken by trauma.

Rape survivors often experience hindsight bias – the belief that they should have been able to predict or prevent an assault. This belief, which further reinforces self-blame, is fortified by a culture in which rape prevention programs tend to focus on women as opposed to men, leading women to believe they alone are responsible for and can prevent rape.

Then there’s denial, a defense mechanism that can take the form of avoidance of or dissociation from the trauma. Because the reality of what has happened is overwhelming to the brain and psyche, denying or ignoring it provides a defense from the flood of emotion that follows trauma and helps reestablish a sense of stability.

Common rape stereotypes – for example, that rape is mainly committed by strangers in a novel situation, not by acquaintances during everyday experiences – reinforce these feelings. In fact, statistics indicate that 80% to 90% of women are raped by someone they know.

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Judging a changing story

A person assessing the reactions of a rape and trauma survivor generally does so in a calm and collected frame of mind. Yet the actions they are judging were made under extreme duress – under mental and physical hurricane conditions, you could say.

For a survivor of rape, an inability to clearly name the assault for what it was is a common outcome of the biological and psychological factors at play during acute stress. This denial functions to preserve their identity and sanity during acute stress, restore order to their world and help them make rational sense of what has happened to them.

Breaking through these self-preservation mechanisms often takes time – time that observers too often misinterpret as a false accounting of what actually happened.

Surrogacy arrangements – agreements for someone to carry a pregnancy for the intended parents – have existed for millennia, and modern surrogacy contracts for half a century.

By Sonia Suter
George Washington University
and Naomi Cahn
University of Virginia

(THE CONVERSATION) — Surrogacy arrangements – agreements for someone to carry a pregnancy for the intended parents – have existed for millennia, and modern surrogacy contracts for half a century.

These contracts typically address parental rights, the possibility of abortion, medical instructions, health insurance and payment of expenses, each side with its own legal representation. The contracts are usually honored, resulting in thousands of babies born through surrogacy in the U.S., at a cost that can top US$200,000 when agencies are involved.

In a 2026 case, surrogate McKenna West refused the intended parents’ request for an abortion after the fetus was diagnosed with a serious heart condition. The case raises an uncomfortable question: What happens when the surrogate’s bodily autonomy collides with the intended parents’ wishes?

As scholars of reproductive justice and family law, we see this case as an example of how rapidly changing abortion laws, reproductive technology and family law can create conflicts that surrogacy contracts cannot necessarily anticipate.

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The West case

West’s contract stated that “there shall be a termination of the pregnancy for a fetal abnormality … if the Intended Parents request” it. She later wrote that “their lawyer and my own former lawyer sent me letters threatening six-figure penalties if I didn’t comply with their demand to terminate.”

Instead, West moved from Alaska to Texas, where she had family support and believed the baby, when born, could get needed care. Moreover, she knew that Texas bans abortion in almost all circumstances. Meanwhile, the intended parents, who lived in California, obtained a court order before the birth stating they would become the legal parents once the baby was born.

Before West gave birth, the Texas attorney general obtained a court order requiring lifesaving care for the baby, stating that “the intended parents have refused to agree that they will consent to the lifesaving surgery.” West sought custody but was willing to drop her claims if the couple agreed to the baby’s treatment.

After the Texas courts upheld the intended parents’ rights, West asked the Supreme Court to intervene so she could receive “further information about the child she carried for 37 weeks and fought to save.” The court declined, leaving West no rights to the baby.

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Previous conflicts

In a similar 2012 case, surrogate Crystal Kelley signed a contract allowing the intended parents to call for an abortion in case of a severe fetal abnormality. When the fetus was diagnosed with a heart defect and other serious anomalies, the parents asked Kelley to terminate the pregnancy. She refused and left Connecticut, where she would not have had parental rights, for Michigan, which at the time would treat her as the legal mother. Kelley placed the baby for adoption, and the girl’s adoptive parents raised her until her death at 8.

In the 1988 Baby M case, a surrogate who was also the genetic mother insisted she should be the mother despite signing a contract to relinquish parental rights. The New Jersey Supreme Court voided that contract because it held that she could not give up her parental rights before birth. As a result, it recognized the surrogate as the legal mother but awarded custody to the father. She later received visitation rights.

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A state-by-state patchwork

Surrogacy contracts establishing legal parentage are enforceable in a number of states. But surrogacy laws vary by state, creating a patchwork with respect to enforceability.

West’s journey, for example, involved three states – Alaska, Texas and the intended parents’ state of California. They are deemed surrogacy-friendly, meaning contracts are relatively easy to enforce there, though the states diverge sharply on abortion.

Surrogacy agreements may require the surrogate to restrict travel, eat nutritiously and cooperate with healthcare providers. As in the West and Kelley cases, agreements may also specify when the surrogate could be asked to abort or, if pregnant with multiple fetuses, selectively terminate.

These abortion provisions have rarely been tested in court, and West’s case hasn’t resolved whether they are enforceable. Rather, they raise the question: Can anyone be forced to have an abortion?

After the Supreme Court’s 2022 Dobbs decision, which held there is no fundamental right to abortion, states have determined their own abortion laws. In states like Texas, abortion provisions in surrogacy contracts are unenforceable. But even where abortion is legal, a court would likely refuse to compel an abortion, given the surrogate’s bodily autonomy.

A surrogate’s control over her body may be more limited, however, when intended parents seek to enforce provisions meant to protect the fetus.

If a physician recommends a C-section for the fetus’s well-being and the surrogate refuses, for example, a court might enforce a contract clause requiring her “to cooperate with her medical providers.”

Even before 2022, when abortion was still a federal constitutional right, courts in some – but not all – jurisdictions ordered C-sections against the pregnant person’s wishes.

In other words, bodily autonomy has never been absolute for pregnant people.

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A post-Dobbs world

Since Dobbs, surrogacy and abortion have become increasingly intertwined.

In 2025, a Florida judge questioned the constitutionality of surrogacy on fetal-personhood grounds – the legal theory that an unborn fetus or embryo has the same legal rights as a born human – even as he granted the intended parents parental rights.

In his view, there can be no “contractual ownership interest over the unborn baby.” Florida’s attorney general took the argument further, declaring that the couple’s contract with the surrogate violated the 13th Amendment’s ban on slavery. A spokesperson said he was concerned “about any case where a surrogacy company profits off the sale of children.”

Some conservative legislators and advocacy groups have also been challenging the legitimacy of surrogacy, a few with plans to limit or even ban it. Consequently, in states that take fetal and embryo personhood seriously, surrogacy contracts and even IVF could become unavailable.

West’s case has surfaced starkly different views of what is at stake. For some, surrogacy is a form of baby selling that should not be allowed. For others, it is a way for intended parents to create families and for surrogates to support them.

Surrogacy asks the law to recognize both the interests of people who intend to become parents and the autonomy of the person who is pregnant. Dobbs has made that balance harder to maintain by inviting fetal-personhood principles into areas of law that had not previously treated fetuses or embryos as persons.