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Wednesday, October 05, 2005

No procreation without a penis
Posted by Jill | 10:20 AM
Pam, Tbogg, Feministe, and Amanda and the immediate world are all weighing in on one of the nuttiest ideas to hit Wingnuttia yet -- and we all know that Wingnuttia is the home of some pretty damn fine insanity.

An interim legislative committee is considering a bill that would prohibit gays, lesbians and single people in Indiana from using medical science to assist them in having a child.


Think if you're straight this doesn't apply to you? Read on:

The bill defines assisted reproduction as causing pregnancy by means other than sexual intercourse, including intrauterine insemination, donation of an egg, donation of an embryo, in vitro fertilization and transfer of an embryo, and sperm injection.

It then requires "intended parents" to be married to each other and says an unmarried person may not be an intended parent.

A doctor cannot begin an assisted reproduction technology procedure that may result in a child being born until the intended parents have received a certificate of satisfactory completion of an assessment required under the bill. The assessment is similar to what is required for infant adoption and would be conducted by a licensed child placing agency in Indiana.


Think if you're straight and married, you're off the hook? Read on:

The required information includes the fertility history of the parents, education and employment information, personality descriptions, verification of marital status, child care plans and criminal history checks. Description of the family lifestyle of the intended parents also is required, including participation in faith-based or church activities.


Which means that if you're oh, say, a Wiccan, or unaffiliated with any religion; or if you don't want to be a stay-at-home Mom, or you got busted on a pot possession charge in 1972, the state might be able to refuse to allow you access to reproductive technology.

Now, I happen to think it SHOULD be more difficult to have kids. When I see parents letting kids run around in restaurants where there are waiters carrying heavy trays; or letting their kids play in the street wearing dark clothes after dark -- and let's forget for a moment about the crackheads and the alcoholics and people who dress their children like this -- I start to think that parenting should require a license, or at the very least some advance training. But this bill is clearly designed to get the state involved in determining that only white, middle-class, single-earner, heterosexual, Christian couples have access to reproductive technologies. And that's eugenics, folks.

This is the problem with straight people ignoring laws that seem to only affect gays. Because laws that affect any of us affect all of us.

UPDATE: ShakesSis has read through the whole thing, and notes that:

parents seeking a pregnancy through medical means would also have to produce financial records, documentation of previous marriages “and an assessment of the impact of the prior marriage on the intended parents' relationship,” “the intended parents' child rearing expectations and values,” criminal records, child care plans, and a whole slew of other information, which, when taken as a whole, seems to indicate that Indiana doesn’t believe that anyone but straight, rich, Christian families with no past divorces and a stay-at-home mom are deserving of medical assisted procreation.


She also notes that very few male bloggers seem concerned about this. Just as many male bloggers seem perfectly willing to toss women's reproductive autonomy out the window as a necessary cost of "picking and choosing our battles."
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