Indiana Wants to Control My Uterus

Following on the heels of D's post below, I'd like to point out that the requirements one would have to meet to receive a “certificate of satisfactory completion of an assessment required under the bill” indicates that the insane legislation being proposed on my state is not only seeking to ban pregnancies for single mothers, lesbians, and gay men via surrogate, but also straight, married women who aren’t religious.

Miller says that assisted pregnancy is totally unregulated. The bill would bar any doctor from assisting in a pregnancy through intrauterine insemination, donation of an egg, donation of an embryo, in vitro fertilization and transfer of an embryo, and sperm injection without making a number of "determinations" about the "suitability of the candidate.

Women seeking treatment would have to provide a certificate of satisfactory completion of an assessment required under the bill.

Among the determining factors is a requirement that the women be married to a person of the opposite sex. The assessment would contain a description of the family lifestyle and automatically exclude lesbians. Women would also have to provide proof that they have participated in faith-based or church activities.

Reading through the proposed legislation, I see 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.

Talk about The Handmaid’s Tale—fucking hell! This is some scary, scary shit. Forget the Ten Commandments in a frigging courtroom; this may be the most unbelievable encroachment on the separation of church and state I have ever seen. Legislating whether someone can have a child based on whether one is straight? married? religious? Absolutely despicable. I am ashamed of my state, and I have some calls to make.

Also writing on this: The Heretik, with a round-up of others writing on the issue, Pam, Marla at Julien's List, Feministe, Our Word, What She Said, Pandagon, Majikthise, Cookie Jill at Skippy, Echidne, The Booman Tribune, King of Zembla, Expostulation, John Howard, The Fulcrum, Evil Li-brul Overlord, Evil Mommy.

Come on, guys—The Heretik, The King, John, and Charles2 can’t be the only boys who feels some outrage over this one!