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New law will require marriage as a legal condition of motherhood
...just lie back and welcome our Talibangelic overlords
Or, "The Handmaid's Tale was not intended as a blueprint, motherfuckers."
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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 through 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.
"Petition for parentage"? "Gestational certificate"?
What the fucking fuck?
You can read a PDF of the preliminary draft here.
So, let's see, the religious right's plan is as follows: 1) Repeal
Roe v. Wade. 2) Ban emergency contraception. 3) Allow pharmacists to arbitrarily
deny women their birth control prescriptions. 4) Deny equal marriage rights
to same-sex couples. 5) Codify the right to reproduce only for married couples,
and only those who pass a test -- because people who can't conceive without
assistance are automatically suspect. 6) Make criminals of unmarried women and
their physicians who dare to use reproductive technologies without state sanction,
so that they are damned for trying to have children as well as for trying to
avoid having children.
Eventually, those damned uppity womenfolk will realize that they don't
own their own bodies. Just gotta beat those thoughts out of 'em. It's
all for the children, you know. Won't anybody please think of the children?
Honestly, I don't think this is really all that different from some the eugenics
ideas advocated by Margaret Sanger and such, ideas that pro-lifers claim to
abhor. It's all about governmental permission to reproduce -- they're just coming
at it from a different angle.
I don't think I know anyone in Indiana, but if anyone reading this does, make
sure they know about this bill and get them to tell their state legislators
to kill it. I doubt this would hold up under judicial review, but any success
at getting even that far will only embolden the religious right in other states
even more. Really, how much more evidence do we need to see that our
own homegrown Taliban is engaged in a war on women? We're sending our
soldiers to die in Iraq and Afghanistan ostensibly in the name of freedom, and
all the while a substantial number of our fellow citizens are working on establishing
religious tyranny at home.