The Family Law Loophole That Lets Sex Offenders Parent Kids

A recent case out of Pennsylvania has forced family law attorneys, lawmakers and parents to confront an uncomfortable reality: the state’s surrogacy framework was never built with child protection in mind.

Brandon Keith Riley-Mitchell, a Tier 1 registered sex offender, legally became the parent of a newborn child conceived through gestational surrogacy. Videos of his baby’s first birthday went viral, petitions circulated and questions mounted about how someone with his criminal history was able to gain full parental rights.

The answer, according to the York County District Attorney, is simple. No law was broken.

Pennsylvania prohibits registered sex offenders from adopting or fostering children, but it has no statute restricting who may become a parent through surrogacy. That gap, combined with the widespread use of pre-birth orders that automatically assign parentage at birth, created the exact conditions that allowed this outcome.

How Surrogacy and Adoption Operate Under Two Different Legal Frameworks

The starkest lesson from the Pennsylvania case is that adoption and surrogacy are governed by two entirely different legal models, each reflecting a different theory of parenthood.

Adoption is built around the best interests of the child. Surrogacy is built around the intent of adults entering a private agreement.

Adoption Is Child-Centered

In Pennsylvania, and in nearly every state, adoption is heavily regulated. Prospective adoptive parents must undergo criminal background checks, child abuse clearances and home studies. Courts vet the suitability of each household before transferring parental rights. These protections exist to ensure children are placed in safe and stable environments.

Because of these protections, registered sex offenders with convictions related to minors are barred from adopting or fostering children in Pennsylvania. The law explicitly restricts individuals with Riley-Mitchell’s history from gaining legal parentage through the adoption process. This is a deliberate safeguard designed to prevent risk before a child enters the home.

These requirements reflect the core philosophy behind adoption law. Courts are charged with stepping into a protective role because many children entering the adoption system have already experienced instability or trauma. The vetting process functions as a proxy for the child’s voice, ensuring that adults cannot acquire parental rights without proving they can provide a safe, stable environment.

Even relative and kinship caregivers must undergo clearances before placements occur. From the state’s perspective, the child’s best interests outweigh every other consideration, including the adults’ desire to parent. This is why adoption law imposes barriers, delays and oversight that can feel burdensome to prospective parents but are essential for safeguarding vulnerable children.

Surrogacy Is Contract-Centered

Gestational surrogacy in Pennsylvania operates on an entirely different plane. The state has no statute requiring background checks for intended parents. There is no mandatory inquiry into criminal history. No requirement that intended parents complete parenting education. Surrogacy agreements are treated as private contracts between adults, often supported by reproductive medicine clinics and attorneys, but without statutory oversight that parallels adoption.

Most significantly, surrogacy arrangements in Pennsylvania rely on pre-birth parentage orders. These orders are often granted by courts after reviewing the contract and confirming the parties’ consent. Once granted, the intended parents become the legal parents the moment the child is born.

There is no judicial analysis of whether they are fit to parent. There is no adversarial hearing. There is no safety review. This lack of judicial discretion is especially significant because it means courts rarely have the opportunity or authority to inquire about the background of intended parents. Many pre-birth parentage petitions are granted without a hearing. The legal process of surrogacy is often merely ministerial, which is precisely the certainty and efficiency intended parents want.

But that efficiency often comes at a cost. The law presumes adults who can biologically reproduce or afford assisted reproduction are inherently fit to parent. That presumption may often hold true, yet it leaves no room for exceptions. Without mandated screening, courts lack a mechanism to pause or challenge arrangements that would raise immediate red flags in an adoption proceeding.

How the Pennsylvania Case Exposed the Gap

The case of Brandon Keith Riley-Mitchell demonstrates exactly how surrogacy’s contract-based structure allows individuals who would be disqualified from adoption to become parents through reproductive arrangements.

Riley-Mitchell was a high school chemistry teacher when he was charged in 2016 with unlawful contact with a minor, child pornography, corruption of minors and endangerment of the welfare of children. Investigators found more than 12,000 text messages between him and a 16-year-old student, including explicit images and discussions about future sexual contact. He pleaded guilty, served jail time, completed probation and was required to register as a sex offender.

Because his conviction involved a minor, he was barred from adopting or fostering a child under Pennsylvania law.

After marrying, Riley-Mitchell pursued surrogacy, a path that adoption law had shut off. The couple created embryos through in vitro fertilization using an anonymous egg donor and secured a gestational surrogate. Their surrogate underwent medical and social worker evaluations, but Pennsylvania law did not require the surrogate or partner to undergo background checks, nor did it require any review of the intended parents’ criminal histories.

Prioritizing Parents Over Children

This is standard under current state law. Pennsylvania imposes no statutory vetting requirements on intended parents, even when a surrogate is carrying a child for them.

While the specific documentation in this case has not been made public, all indications suggest the couple obtained a pre-birth parentage order. These orders are commonly granted and allow the intended parents to be listed on the birth certificate immediately. Once issued, the court treats parental rights as established. No further review occurs.

Because Riley-Mitchell was not accused of harming any child in his care and no law prohibited him from becoming a biological or intended parent, the district attorney had no authority to intervene. The DA’s office confirmed that no criminal violation had occurred and that nothing in Pennsylvania law barred a registered sex offender from becoming a parent through surrogacy.

A Broken System?

The case demonstrates the divide between the two systems with unusual clarity. The same individual who was legally prohibited from adopting could gain full parental rights through surrogacy without a safety check, home study, or judicial inquiry. This outcome was the predictable result of a legal system that focuses on adult intent rather than child welfare when parentage flows from a reproductive contract.

It also revealed how little protection exists for surrogates themselves. In this case, the surrogate’s partner acknowledged that Riley-Mitchell disclosed he had something in his past but did not elaborate. Even with that information, the surrogate has no right to a full criminal background check about the intended parents unless it was volunteered.

Surrogates must undergo medical and psychological evaluations, yet intended parents are not subject to comparable scrutiny, creating an asymmetrical system where the pregnant person is vetted but the future parents are not. Surrogates face significant physical and emotional risk, yet have limited information about who will raise the child they carried.

The Growing Push for Regulation

The Riley-Mitchell case prompted swift calls for reform from lawmakers and district attorneys. Their responses reflect a broader conversation now emerging across states: Should surrogacy include the same baseline protections embedded in adoption law?

State Representative Aaron Bernstine announced his intention to introduce legislation requiring background checks and child abuse clearances for anyone pursuing surrogacy in Pennsylvania. His proposal directly references the Riley-Mitchell case and notes that pre-birth orders bypass the scrutiny required in adoption proceedings.

Bernstine’s bill is designed to bring surrogacy closer in line with adoption by ensuring that intended parents who would be barred from adoption cannot access parentage through surrogacy.

Separately, Senator Doug Mastriano circulated a co-sponsorship memo outlining the Gestational Carrier / Interstate Child Protection Bill. His proposal would require comprehensive background checks for all intended parents, gestational carriers and adult household members. It also addresses the challenges of interstate surrogacy, where out-of-state carriers currently have no obligation to meet Pennsylvania’s safety standards. Under the bill, courts would be prohibited from issuing pre-birth or post-birth parentage orders unless all required clearances had been completed and verified. The legislation also includes penalties for noncompliance or fraudulent submissions.

Changing How We Think About Parents

Both proposals reflect a growing consensus that surrogacy cannot continue to operate as a contract-only process. Without uniform vetting, individuals barred from adoption or fostering will continue to have access to a separate pathway to parenthood that lacks the baseline protections society expects.

Requiring background checks does not eliminate the autonomy of intended parents or the rights of LGBTQ families using assisted reproduction. Instead, it acknowledges that the state has a compelling interest in verifying that intended parents do not present a known risk to children before granting full legal parentage.

If enacted, these reforms would align surrogacy more closely with adoption and foster care by introducing child-centered safeguards that currently do not exist. They would also give courts a clear statutory basis to review and, if necessary, deny parentage in cases where serious concerns arise.

As lawmakers work to bring surrogacy within a child-protection framework, the central question becomes whether parentage achieved through assisted reproduction should be subject to the same protective standards society already applies when children enter a home through adoption. The Riley-Mitchell case suggests the answer is yes. Without reform, the state will continue to rely on a system that protects the contractual rights of adults while leaving its most vulnerable recipients unprotected.