How Women Lose In the Mom Market

The fact that there’ s no national dialogue over this is a travesty in itself.

WHEN the 2016 presidential candidates are campaigning in Iowa and New Hampshire and are all over the news networks, they’re focusing their speeches on security, ISIS and immigration.

No surprise there. But while these subjects are obviously important, there’s a pressing humanrights issue that I hope can find its way into, perhaps, a debate question or two: the attempted forced abortions of unborn children carried by two California surrogate moms. Yes, you read that correctly. The recent California cases — first reported by The Post — where Brittneyrose Torres and Melissa Cook were, in separate matters, each pressured to abort a fetus because the wouldbe parents didn’t want them, even though they were by all accounts healthy. These tragic cases exemplify the moral, ethical and humanrights dilemma that the commercialsurrogacy industry has brought us.

In each case, the surrogate mother refused and is accused of breaching her contract. The biological parents “knew from the beginning that we wouldn’t want to abort unless it was a lifeanddeath situation,” Torres told The Post.

The injustices baked into the surrogatemother market are fast becoming one of the most important global women’srights issues of the day.

The fact that there’s no national dialogue over this is a travesty in itself. The issues transcend gender, race and class, and won’t be ignored for long. Indeed, they can’t be.

It amounts to a human breeding industry, where women are paid anywhere from $25,000 to $50,000 to give birth to other people’s children — not to mention the exorbitant fees for law yers and “placement” agencies. It’s an industry that’s booming.

It’s currently a $3.5 billion business and estimates have it growing by nearly 15 percent by 2018.

Often military wives and lowincome women are targeted for surrogacy — generally, those in need of money. But it’s nonetheless the abuse of women and lack of protections for the children that are of real concern.

What’s also maddening is that US contract law is being used to try to forcibly terminate healthy babies. Think about it: Can mothers bearing children be legally forced to abort? It is the question of our age — and any wouldbe president ought to have a clear position.

There are no federal laws on commercial surrogacy in the United States, and state laws are a mishmash of inconsistent, perplexing and contradictory rules that all too often are rife with loopholes that are easy to circumvent by crossing state lines.

Other nations, such as Canada, India, Cambodia and many European countries have either banned or restricted the practice; some have even classified it as human trafficking.

The Mexican legislature recently voted to close the border to foreign couples and gay men looking to have a child by surrogacy while also restricting such options for Mexicans. The European Parliament last week officially condemned the practice of surrogacy, calling it an exploitation of vulnerable women.

Yet still not a peep from the US presidential candidates.

The growth of thirdparty re productive technology is forcing issues like this upon us, yet our elected leaders and those seeking public office are willfully looking away in order to avoid controversy.

Maybe they don’t understand the issue. Regardless, they need to step up and take a stand.

“I want other women not to be put in this situation,” Torres told The Post. “They shouldn’t be forced to do something they don’t want to.”

Over the next few months, voters are sure to hear any number of superlatives, promises and other features of outlandish campaign rhetoric. And we’re likely to hear about all sorts of horsetrading and dealmaking at the two nominating conventions.

But where do they stand on protecting women and children? The country, and the world, have a right to know.