I must be a masochist for reading the National Review Online. Today their bromide du jour focuses upon the number of Chinese nationals using American surrogates:

IVF clinics are getting rich peddling commercialized and consumerist procreation. Some are now happily participating in a scheme to make new American citizens by using surrogacy to establish anchor babies. The time is overdue to regulate this industry.

Apparently it never occurred to Mr. Smith that perhaps these foreign nationals are not hatching some nefarious plot to become American citizens, but rather are having babies so they can become parents? Infertility knows no borders. Nor does the desire to be a parent – particularly when you live in a country that does not permit surrogacy.

Why bother considering the most obvious motivation to work with an American surrogate when the xenophobic rationale will allow you to gin up a fallacious controversy that panders to your anti-immigration base. I am sure all these international citizens are going to expend $125,000 just to have an American baby so that two decades later they can apply to be citizens too.

That’s compassionate conservatism for you.