Surrogacy is problematic for a whole host of reasons. It makes procreation and pregnancy transactional, creates morally and ethically reprehensible conundrums, hurts women and babies, has strong overlap with human trafficking, and reeks of corruption.

Arguably, the most alarming consequence that comes from the increasingly popular practice of renting wombs, however, is that surrogacy can be easily exploited by pedophiles and abusers to gain proximity to children.

One such example surfaced this week after internet sleuths discovered that one of the two men seen in a viral video celebrating a baby’s monthly milestones by kissing the boy’s face is a convicted pedophile.

Less than 10 years before Brandon Mitchell bought his son via surrogacy, the then-high school chemistry teacher earned himself several criminal charges for attempting to solicit images from a male teenage student. Subsequent investigation by law enforcement yielded more than 12,000 texts between the teacher and child as well as several pieces of sexually explicit media.

Mitchell was quickly convicted and sentenced to nearly two years in prison. After just two months, however, Mitchell was paroled on the condition that he would “have no unsupervised contact with minors.”

Thanks to unregulated fertility and surrogacy industries, however, Mitchell now has custody of a baby boy without so much as a required background check.

Mitchell and the man he is with didn’t simply commission the creation and gestation of their child. They crowdfunded it by soliciting surrogacy-focused donations on GoFundMe.

In the fundraiser description, Mitchell’s partner, Logan Riley, broke down the logistics of their rent-a-womb arrangement.

“In gestational surrogacy, the child is not biologically related to the surrogate mother. Instead, an embryo is created via in vitro fertilization (IVF) using an anonymous donor egg. The embryo is then transferred to the gestational surrogate who carries the baby as if it were any other pregnancy. Once the baby is born, the intended parents (Brandon and I) would have full legal custody,” Riley wrote.

Not only was the baby born of this business deal deprived of any opportunity to meet his biological mother, but he was also ripped from the warm arms of his surrogate mother, who spent nine months nurturing him in her womb.

This immediate separation wreaks irrevocable physical, emotional, and mental harm on both the newborn and the woman who carried him, which should be reason alone for scrutiny against surrogacy. Yet, mere moments after delivery, that tiny baby was physically and legally placed in the care of at least one convicted pedophile and at least one man who has no biological ties to the child.

Thanks to the unregulated nature of the gametes-buying and rent-a-womb industries, anyone who can afford to commission a child can do so without any vetting. This fact is especially ironic given that the women they employ to gestate babies endure mental and physical tests before they are advertised in a surrogacy agency’s little black book to be marketed to potential parents like a product in a magazine.

Specific requirements vary, but all 50 states require some level of vetting for those who choose to foster or adopt. In Pennsylvania, where Mitchell received his conviction, sex offenders are prohibited from fostering or adopting children. People in the Keystone State who hire surrogates, however, are not subject to the same ban.

In fact, “surrogacy-friendly” pre-birth orders in more than a dozen states, including Pennsylvania in some cases, ensure that whoever commissions the creation of a child via IVF and surrogacy has established parents’ rights protections before labor ever begins.

Mitchell’s story, while disturbing, is, unfortunately, not isolated. Historically, accused pedophiles and abusers across the world used rented wombs as a loophole to gain proximity to children through purchase.

In a recent case, a California couple posed as both an infertile couple and a surrogacy agency to recruit women to gestate most of their 21 children. They were arrested for felony child endangerment and neglect when police found 15 of those kids, ages 2 months to 13 years, in disturbing living conditions.

Assisted reproductive technology activists want the world to believe that child molesters and abusers who commission children by purchasing eggs and sperm and employing surrogates are rare. Yet there’s no denying that the movement to keep surrogacy legally protected and profitable for various malicious reasons, including “queering” babies, exists.

Since the rent-a-womb industry is expected to continue growing at a rapid rate, it’s only logical to conclude that heartwrenching cases like that of the boy whose face is repeatedly smushed on camera by his pedophilic guardian will only continue.

Some will surface thanks to the diligence of people like those who discovered Mitchell’s dark past. Others will sadly stay hidden — concealed behind an unregulated landscape of ethically questionable fertility practices.

[READ: The Conservative, Pro-Life Case Against Surrogacy]