By Laura McPhee
Republican lawmakers are drafting new legislation that will make marriage a requirement for motherhood in the state of Indiana, including specific criminal penalties for unmarried women who do become pregnant "by means other than sexual intercourse."
According to a draft of the recommended change in state law, every woman in Indiana seeking to become a mother throu gh assisted reproduction therapy such as in vitro fertilization, sperm donation, and egg donation, must first file for a "petition for parentage" in their local county probate court.
Only women who are married will be considered for the "gestational certificate" that must be presented to any doctor who facilitates the pregnancy. Further, the "gestational certificate" will only be given to married couples that successfully complete the same screening process currently required by law of adoptive parents.
As it the draft of the new law reads now, an intended parent "who knowingly or willingly participates in an artificial reproduction procedure" without court approval, "commits unauthorized reproduction, a Class B misdemeanor." The criminal charges will be the same for physicians who commit "unauthorized practice of artificial reproduction."
The change in Indiana law to require marriage as a condition for motherhood and criminalizing "unauthorized reproduction" was introduced at a summer meeting of the Indiana General Assembly's Health Finance Commission on September 29 and a final version of the bill will come up for a vote at the next meeting at the end of this month.
Republican Senator Patricia Miller is both the Health Finance Commission Chair and the sponsor of the bill. She believes the new law will protect children in the state of Indiana and make parenting laws more explicit.
According to Sen. Miller, the laws prohibiting surrogacy in the state of Indiana are currently too vague and unenforceable, and that is the purpose of the new legislation.
"But it's not just surrogacy," Miller told NUVO. " The law is vague on all types of extraordinary types of infertility treatment, and we wanted to address that as well."
"Ordinary treatment would be the mother's egg and the father's sperm. But now there are a lot of extraordinary thing s that raise issues of who has legal rights as parents," she explained when asked what she considers "extraordinary" infertility treatment.
Sen. Miller believes the requirement of marriage for parenting is for the benefit of the children that result from infertility treatments.
"We did want to address the issue of whether or not the law should allow single people to be parents. Studies have shown that a child raised by both parents - a mother and a father - do better. So, we do want to have laws that protect the children," she explained.
When asked specifically if she believes marriage should be a requirement for motherhood, and if that is part of the bill's intention, Sen. Miller responded, "Yes. Yes, I do."
A draft of the legislation is available on the Health Finance Commission website
http://www.in.gov/legislative/interim/committee/prelim/HFCO04.pdf
The next meeting of the Health Finance Commission will be held a t the Statehouse on October 20, 2005 at 10 am in Senate Chambers and is open to the public.
To express your support or opposition of legislation making "unauthorized reproduction" a criminal act, contact members of the Health Finance Commission by telephone or email:
Sen. Patricia Miller (R) 232-9489 s32 at ... Sen. Gregory Server (R) 232-9490 s50 at ... Sen. Gary Dillon (R) 232-9808 s17 at ... Sen. Beverly Gard (R) 232-9493 s28 at ... Sen. Ryan Mishler (R) 233-0930 s9 at ... Sen. Connie Lawson (R) 232-9984 s24 at ... Sen. Marvin Riegsecker (R) 232-9488 s12 at ... Sen. Billie Breaux (D) 232-9849 s34 at ... Sen. Vi Simpson (D) 232-9849 s40 at ... Sen. Connie Sipes (D) 232-9526 s46 at ... Sen. Timothy Skinner (D) 232-9523 s38 at ... Rep. Vaneta Becker (R) 232-9769 h78 at ... Rep. Robert Behning (R) 232-9981 h91 at ... Rep. Timothy Brown (R) 234-3825 h41 at ... Rep.Mary Kay Budak(R) 232-9641 h20 at ... Rep. Da vid Frizzell (R) 232-9981 h93 at ... Rep. Donald Lehe (R) 232-9648 h15 at ... Rep. Richard Dodge (R) 232-9729 h51 at ... Rep. Charlie Brown (D) 232-9676 h3 at ... Rep. David Orentlicher (D) 232-9991 h86 at ... Rep. Craig Fry (D) 232-9994 h5 at ... Rep. Carolene Mays (D) 232-0243 h94 at ... Rep. Scott Reske (D) 232-9695 h37 at ...
props to Indiana Green at http://www.progressiveindependent.com
Considering the plans to dump Roe vs Wade and ban Plan B, this is essentially an Unauthorized Sexual Intercourse bill.
Just a misdemeanor, understand, in their compassion they are distinguishing themselves from the Taliban by not recommending execution as penalty, for the woman, naturally, boys will be boys and all that.
But the most exciting element is that this could be another big step toward educating American women that their bodies are the property of the state, who shall be the sole determinant of how their organs of generation shall be utilized, to what end, and by whom.
If married women prove unable to produce a sufficient number of disposable Abu Ghraib guards, it could always be repealed.