HB 910 | Increasing penalties for informal adoptions

Session: 2025-2026

ACLU-PA Position: Opposes

HB 910 PN 951 would amend 18 Pa. C.S. § 4305 to increase the grading for a conviction for dealing in infant children from a misdemeanor of the first degree to a felony of the first degree.

Pennsylvania’s “dealing in infant children” statute (§ 4305) was intentionally designed as a narrow offense to address the commercialization of infants—such as informal, transactional transfers outside the lawful adoption system—not the coercive, exploitative conduct that defines human trafficking.

Elevating this offense to a felony blurs that distinction and risks collapsing two separate legal frameworks that were meant to address different harms.

If traffickers—not people desperate for a child of their own—are buying and selling infants for nefarious purposes, those offenses would already be covered by the numerous other sex and assault offenses that heavily penalize crimes against children, including trafficking. Sexual harm or assault against children has been covered ad nauseam in the Crimes Code; there is no need to address it here.

Maintaining this offense as a misdemeanor preserves the statute’s original purpose as a targeted backstop to the adoption system, while ensuring that truly egregious conduct is charged under the more appropriate, existing felony statutes. Absent clear evidence of a gap, increasing penalties risks expanding felony exposure without improving accountability or safety.