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October 05, 2005

If one is going argue the merit of proposed law

wouldn't be nice to actually know the proposed law? Via Jeff Goldstein comes a story from Feminista who runs with the "analysis" of a proposed change to Indiana law dealing with artificial reproduction. But you might be forgiven if that isn't your first thought when reading this from the blog post Feminista links to

The Crime of "Unauthorized Reproduction"
New law will require marriage as a legal condition of motherhood
However, a reading of the actual proposed law reveals something very different than the hysteria of
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.

OR
As long as they can tell women, “You are legally barred from getting pregnant without a man’s permission” (either by him physically ejaculating in you and/or marrying you), everything is a-ok. *
*and that's just a silly statement, because if you "get [deliberately] pregnant" without the male's consent that can, and should, constitute fraud.

Yes, the .pdf is 22 pages long, but the assertions about the law just seemed too far out, even for politicos who can't help but tinker in areas that should be off limits. So I started slogging through it.

The focus is not on "controlling women" or jailing unwed mothers. The focus seems to be an attempt to deal with the related issues of parenthood, adoption, gestational mothers, genetic parents and babies as commodities.

Agree or not with Indianna legislature, it is not unreasonable when the courts have had to deal with wrenching cases of a child borne to parents not at all genetically connected with the child then having the genetic parent(s) also claim the child, to want to craft law to anticipate and to take action before such issues arise. Such cases are not much different than the adoption debacles where parents might have their child for years only to have a genetic donor show up and claim, by blood, the child...and win as in the infamous Baby Richard case. Especially now as women can bear children not genetically connected to them, a whole other dimension filled with potential danger to the child involved rears its head.

So, disagree with Indianna's decision to put artificial reproduction on the same plane as adoption -- with requirements of certification of intended parents by a licensed child placing agency, the limitation of any compensation to donors beyond cost of actual donation, the termination of all rights and responsibilities of donors -- but don't believe it is some sort of anti-female stealth law.

Argue, if you will, whether Indianna is too strict in restricting this quasi-adoption to married couples and proposing to charge any PERSON (not "woman") violating the law (page 21) with a misdemeanor. Those are reasonable objections. I personally believe they are too strict, even as I agree with some of the proactive protections geared towards the resultant child.

But the rest? The "taliban" remarks? The silliness that women can reproduce WITHOUT men?

Sheesh. Emily Litella lives!

Posted by Darleen at October 5, 2005 12:01 AM

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