Surrogacy operates in a legal grey area in most states, without laws banning or explicitly allowing the practice. Those states that do have laws are highly permissive. While background checks, or at the very least a mental health screening, are often required for surrogate mothers, Virginia is the only state to require any sort of vetting for commissioning parents. Children born via surrogacy are almost never afforded the same protections as their adopted peers.

When people talk about the redefinition of the family, they’re usually referring to major, historic shifts like the Supreme Court’s redefinition of marriage in 2015, or the domino effect of no-fault divorce that began in California in 1969. And while they’re certainly right that these changes are catastrophic, quieter but equally insidious shifts have been taking place across the states—sometimes without so much as garnering a headline. Subtle changes in state laws on parentage, assisted reproduction, and marriage have been redefining the family and undermining children’s rights to their own mother and father for decades.

Them Before Us recently scored all 50 states and the District of Columbia on how well they do (or do not) protect children’s rights in the family. The results reveal shifts in state laws going back decades that put adult ideologies and agendas ahead of child well-being.

When a city endorses polyamorous marriages, it makes national headlines. But when an 80-page bill containing two lines allowing courts to decide that a child has three or more parents is signed into state law, people rarely notice. Ten states have now implemented laws doing just that. So-called “polyparenting” obscures the parent-child bond by adding a third, fourth, or even fifth adult and exposes children to the risks of having a revolving door of unrelated adults in and out of their homes.

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