Anti-Choice Congressman Reportedly Offered Aide $5 Million to Carry His Child

Shortly after this announcement, Politico dropped a bombshell report, citing sources who said that Franks asked two former female staffers to act as potential surrogates for him and his wife — though the women were unsure if he meant via sexual intercourse or through in vitro fertilization.

A former aide also told the Associated Press that Franks “repeatedly pressed her to carry his child, at one point offering her $5 million to serve as a surrogate.”

Yesterday, Franks released a two-page statement obliquely referencing the allegations against him. He and his wife have struggled with infertility, he wrote, and were able to start a family because “a wonderful and loving lady… acted as a gestational surrogate for our twins.” But they still want another child, he continued, and admitted to discussing surrogacy with “two previous female subordinates, making each feel uncomfortable.” “I clearly became insensitive as to how the discussion of such an intensely personal topic might affect others,” Franks said. “I deeply regret that my discussion of this option and process in the workplace caused distress.” In his initial statement, Franks insisted that he “absolutely never physically intimidated, coerced, or had, or attempted to have, any sexual contact with any member of my congressional staff” and that he’d rather quit a job he’s held since 2003 than undergo “a sensationalized trial by media.” The Politico report contradicts this claim: In addition to asking two women to serve as surrogates, sources with knowledge of the complaint against Franks told the outlet that the congressman “tried to persuade a female aide that they were in love by having her read an article that described how a person knows they’re in love with someone. He also reportedly retaliated against a woman who rebuffed him, who says she was denied access to Franks after turning down his advances. (Franks has denied all of the allegations through a spokesperson.)

The congressman’s announcement yesterday came the same day that the House Ethics Committee announced plans to examine whether Franks “engaged in conduct that constitutes sexual harassment and/or retaliation for opposing sexual harassment.” Initially, Franks said he would resign on January 31, 2018. "But just hours after POLITICO inquired about the allegations, he sped up his resignation and left office Friday."

The allegations against Franks have been called “bizarre,” and rightfully so, but for many reproductive rights advocates, they’re not totally surprising—considering his longtime efforts to stop women from making their own decisions about their bodies, it’s fitting that he allegedly asked the women around him to consider being a vessel for his children. “As one of the most virulently anti-choice members of the House, Rep. Trent Franks has had plenty of practice asking women to carry pregnancies against their will,” NARAL Pro-Choice America quipped on Twitter this morning.

Indeed, the congressman has a long history of anti-abortion fanaticism: For years, he’s tried to ban abortion after the 20-week mark in a woman’s pregnancy. In October, House Republicans passed the Pain-Capable Unborn Children Protection Act, which he introduced. During his testimony, Franks called “very late-term abortions”—a political phrase that’s medically misleading—the “greatest atrocity happening in the United States today.” He also stated that passing this bill was “a test of our basic humanity and who we are as a human family.”

Franks also once famously claimed that “the incidence of rape resulting in pregnancy are very low,” and has, on more than one occasion, compared abortion with the violent history of slavery in the US. In 2010, he told blogger Mike Starks that “today, half of all black children are aborted—half of all black children are aborted! Far more of the African-American community is being devastated by the policies of today than were being devastated by policies of slavery!”

A year later, Franks introduced the Susan B. Anthony and Frederick Douglass Prenatal Nondiscrimination Act, which would have made it a crime, punishable by up to five years, for a doctor not to determine if race or gender played a role in a woman’s decision to terminate a pregnancy. He called the issue “the civil rights struggle that will define our generation,” while critics claimed the bill would “exacerbate already existing health disparities in communities of color and penalize health providers that offer services in those communities.” In other words, they worried minority women would avoid accessing healthcare for fear of being subjected to invasive questions about their motivations and even the race of their partners.

Kaylie Hanson Long, the national communications director for NARAL, told Broadly: "Congressman Franks has spent his life and career interfering in women's lives and destinies, and this reported behavior is completely unacceptable in Congress, or anywhere else. His resignation is welcome news."