It's a shitty bill, but it's nowhere near as broad as your headline implies. It applies only to in-vitro feritilization. Out-of-wedlock births would still be perfectly legal provided that the child was conceived the old-fashioned way.

In other words, it's a slap at gay couples who want to have children.

Read Richard Bennett's comments in Jeff's post first, please. IANAL, but he does seem to put it in perspective. I'm not even sure it's as bad as Allah is saying.

*sigh*

When did social conservatives become "all gay, all the time?"

We have a guy in Maine who gets worked up into a lather just thinking about gays and how terrible they are for the culture, etc...etc...

There's still a pretty large legal difference between an artificial sperm donor and a natural sperm donor.

Given that, legal constraints on artificial reproduction along the lines of adoption might not be totally outrageous. (OTOH might well be)

Otherwise let's make new rules about donors, natural and otherwise.

It seems to be attacking several things, mostly while trying not to say so out loud. And doing a bad job anyway.

The main thing seems to be to outlaw getting paid for things like supplying some of your eggs (or sperm), which has been debated in many areas of late - and should have been so framed. It makes no difference if a married person does the selling, or an unmarried one. It may be different on the part of the buyer, but that gets us back to the question of what is a marriage.

Did you know that flying the Pope to preside at a High Mass joining two people in Holy Matrimony does not, to the State, make a marriage? Don't hear that complained about much, do we? But it is true: unless he pays a fee authorizing him to sign the state's certificate and until he (or a surrogate who has paid) signs, there is no "marriage."

But at least he can apply, and pay the fee. In my state, there are limits: if you want to be married by a Shinto priest, he can't sign the certificate, period. But don't despair, a Clerk of Court can. Or the Sherrif of one county, for reasons lost to history.

It seems to be a multi-faceted bill that 1) tightens definitions, 2) protects sperm donors, and 3) regulates various forms of out-of-band pregnancies to limit them to married couples, sort of like how adoption is regulated.

Phinn had a great comment in the post, BTW. Economic liberty is infringed all the time, yet sexual liberty is 100% protected all the time? Why? Seems to me that either is capable of screwing up large numbers of people.

A good friend of mine was the product of IVF. Her genetic father had been dead for several years--cancer--but he had a sperm sample cryogenically frozen, and when the technology reached the appropriate point, his widow had a duaghter.

My dad thinks she's some beast out of the Book of Revelation, but she's a terrific person--smart, funny, everything you'd want in a friend. Of course, she's also a lesbian, so there you go.

At the risk of being called a retarded Catholic sex policeman...

If the people in Indiana really wanted this, who the heck cares? Don't live there. Attack the wisdom of it all you want, but please acknowledge that apparently there's nothing unconstitutional about it.

This isn't between conservatives and liberals, it's between libertarians and communitarians. The representatives of the people have every right to suggest all manner of silly laws, and if enough people agree, they have the right to expect the state to enforce that law. But when we don't make clear the difference between stupid and unconstitutional, we end up with nine freaks in black robes privately deciding they know better than us - which is worse than anything a legislature can dream up in public.

Ace of Spades -

I just wanted to take a moment to say that I enjoyed this post. Keep up the good work.

Sincerely,

Bill from INDC

There are condo association in FL that dictate the color of the flower pots you may place on your porch (no joke, its true).

This strikes me as the same kind of control-freak brain dead facism.

I don't normally advocate things like mailing legislators gift wrapped boxes of dog shit and I'm not doing that here (it would be a federal crime).

But -- its pretty easy to see how someone else might want to do that as an expression of their "dissent" if they felt strongly about this.

Here in San Francisco, we have a name for a certain kind of children based on their mode of conception:

Turkey Baster Kids

Now, imagine you're a Hoosier legislator from, say, Kokomo, and you hear that for the first time and suddenly visualize Janet Reno....

Heck, yea, you'd vote for that!

"2. I'm no Biblical scholar, but Jesus' whole deal seemed to be based on personal, voluntary acceptance of Him, not state coercion."

Mrs. Knemon, who is a Biblical scholar, wants me to point out that (unfortunately, in my view) Jesus wasn't the end of the story.

Sort of a Koran vs. Hadiths situation - Paul seems okay with coercion, and Augustine was positively *fond* of it.

JeffG posted on this and I thought it had been proven a hoax, no?

Well, all of us who are religious conservative agreed that it was a completely stupid law, so I don't know who would do it. IT makes me suspicious.

Bingo. Didn't Jesus say, "Be religious if you want, but don't force your beliefs on others"? I'm pretty sure that's in the bible.

Towards the back...

I have five suggestions for goofball conservatives who want to use the power of the state to compel everyone into Jesus-approved propriety:

Wow... aren't you just so--- moderate!

But, you'd probably want to ban a video game where the player shoots his turkey baster- for the chil-l-ldren!

I can but say: BRAVO!

Sure, people wanting and conceiving children so badly that they'll do it without the proper conjugation of private parts is the real problem in the liberal democracies. Our zealousness to conceive children by any means necessary has gotten completely out of control. Everyone's just nuts for kids, as you can see by looking at the ginormous fertility rate.

I don't want anyone to misunderstand the meaning of my sneering remarks. I agree that too large a proportion of out-of-wedlock births is a bad thing. And I've identified two government programs that together form a large part of the problem. I even have a modest proposal for bringing down the rate of out-of-wedlock births:

(1) Abolish public financing of Social Security and Medicare.
(2) Let workers and investors keep their money.
(3) Sit back and watch as married people have more kids, and have them earlier.

Arafel