California legislators are working to pass a bill to redefine the word “infertility” to include inability of same-sex couples and a celibate single to conceive in order to grant them access to fertility treatments covered by insurance. The bill was recently passed in the state Senate and will soon heard in the Assembly Health Committee on July 11.
SB 729 would require employers to provide insurance plans that cover all nonexperimental fertility treatments, including the cost of In vitro fertilization(IVF) for a surrogate hired by any couple or single person that is unable to conceive naturally. Advocates of the legislation have hailed it as a crucial step towards achieving “fertility equality” for the LGBTQ+ community.
State Senator Caroline Menjivar (D.), a co-author of the bill, alongside Assemblywoman Buffy Wicks (D.), stated, “It will ensure that queer couples no longer face higher out-of-pocket expenses in building their families compared to non-queer families…This bill is essential for achieving full equality and advancing comprehensive healthcare for all Californians.”
California already mandates health insurance providers to cover fertility treatments, excluding in-vitro fertilization, for policyholders diagnosed with medical infertility. The current law defines infertility based on a physician’s diagnosis or the commonly accepted criterion of being unable to conceive after a year or more of attempting.
The bill would change the definition of infertility so that it includes, “A person’s inability to reproduce either as an individual or with their partner without medical intervention.” The new definition of infertility would encompass “statuses,” such as being in a same-sex relationship or being single. It would erroneously equate medical infertility to relational infertility.
California insurance companies and businesses have raised concerns about the increased cost for employers. Based on an evaluation conducted by the California Health Benefits Review Program, the implementation of this coverage mandate is projected to result in an annual increase of over $330 million in premiums for employer-sponsored plans. However, the social costs of the mandate would be even greater.
“…every adult operating under this expanded infertility definition will be creating a child who is intentionally motherless or fatherless — a child who will experience the inevitable mother-hunger or father-hunger as they are deprived of their natural right to both. True ‘equality’ seems to require that children lose a parent (or two)…this is the inevitable result of equating two things that can never be equal: opposite-sex and same-sex relationships.” writes Katy Faust, founder of Them Before Us.
California Family Council Capitol director Greg Burt said, “This bill seeks to further erode the father, mother, and child nuclear family and make everyone in society pay for it to further a make-believe cause named ‘fertility equality.’ The reason healthy singles and same-sex couples can’t reproduce has nothing to do with infertility; it has to do with biology.”
Children have the natural right to their biological father and mother, and they suffer tremendously in every area of life when this right is infringed upon. SB 729 needs to be defeated, as it not only inaccurately defines infertility, but it prioritizes the adult desire for children at the expense of children’s rights and well-being.
