I've been in a charitable mood lately. I've been trying to bridge the often narrow gaps that divide people in this country and preaching it's time for a change. I've been workin' real hard on living the life I'm preaching.
Then Becks sends me this little nugget of idiocy.
For those of you to lazy to go follow the link (hey don't feel bad, I'm normally just as bad) let me give you the leading paragraph
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
Yeah you read it right. Want to go the in vitro route to have a child? Best get yourself to the JOP and get hitched. If you aren't married and want to have a child - well then I'd suggest moving to a state that is less regressive, say Texas or Alabama.
The state representative responsible for this piece of water closet refuse is Patricia Miller, a life long Democrat and - no just kidding. This kind of invasion of personal privacy can only come for the Holier than Thou branch of the Republican Party. Ms. Miller seems to think that the state should have "similar requirements to adoption in Indiana" for any non intercourse preganancy.
I checked the calendar - it isn't April Fools. This lady is serious.
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.
Oh yeah - and doctors are not allowed to perform the procedure unless a couple is certified.
Worse, it's not even just whether your married or unmarried - it's a complete workup of your family background, your fertility background, income, medical history, oh and what you do for fun - like go to church or not. The (not so) Great State of Indiana would be in the business of deciding what womb is fit and what womb isn't. What's more - this isn't just for state funded procedures - it seems to apply to every woman who may need medically assisted impregnation.
Can anyone say the Hoosier Handmaiden's Tale?
Representative Miller claims that she modeled the bill after the type of background check that one would go through to adopt a child. Problem is, that that is a lie. She forgets to mention that you can be a single woman in Indiana can adopt a child. DOH. Kind of an oversight there I think. Or, maybe not an oversight - maybe an intentional ommision to garner sympathy from folks to lazy too go learn the facts.
Article comments
1 - Steve S
I'm just waiting for someone from the other side to admit
(...listening to the sound of crickets chirping)
2 - The Cranky Liberal
Sadly I think I will have to wait a long time. Amamazing that people from the right won't rush out and denounce her. Makes me wonder...
3 - diana hartman
this proposal serves as the perfect lubricant for indiana legislators like patricia miller to run their noses right up into the reproductive lives of other people...where ever there's a private and personal issue between consenting adults, you'll find some reproductive organ-obsessed representative trying to legislate their part in a twisted ménage a trois of their own creation...well, it's a foursome now for married couples, and an all out orgy when you get everyone together from the couple to the legislators to the doctors -- all there for what was once a private and personal issue...
who signed your certificate senator? oh, that's right, you grew up with no such restrictions...lucky you...
so when are we going to line up and legislate all those losers with fully operational reproductive organs? you know who they are senator, the ones who didn't and don't need a marriage license because their bits work and who helped to produce and are still producing kids living in poverty, still waiting on child support, and who are uninsured -- in your state, senator!
you're looking to prevent a tragedy you've yet to define and have no proof of ,and yet you've not proposed any legislation to take care of your state's hungry, sick, and uninsured children, many of whom are still waiting for a check from dear old deadbeat...
it is your state is it not, senator miller, where 34% of the children live in low income families and 12% in poverty, where less than half the child support owed to its children has been collected, and where 170,000 uninsured children now reside?
sure all states have hungry children and deadbeat parents, but are they punishing would-be parents who are financially stable enough to afford the procedures and who are motivated enough to go to all that effort to bring a child into the world?
maybe next go 'round you'll ban apples...you know how much of a choking hazard those cores can be...
4 - Choice Mom
FYI: Florida currently doesn't allow gays to adopt, even from the foster care system--Florida Supreme Court earlier in 2005 refused to hear a case that contested the rule. And at least one single woman there recently lost her court case when doctors/clinics (even those she actually worked for) refused to help her become pregnant because she wasn't married. Similar policies are set up at places around the country (one woman I know was refused by two NYC clinics because she wanted to use the sperm of a gay friend). It's not an official state regulation anywhere to refuse to work with singles right now, but it is policy at individual places and among certain doctors.