A statistically improbable polymath's views on politics and culture.

 
Apparently Indiana state senator Patricia Miller wants to know:

An interim legislative committee is considering a bill that would prohibit gays, lesbians and single people in Indiana from using medical science to assist them in having a child.

Miller said the state often reacted to problems and that she wanted to be proactive on this issue.

"We're not trying to stop people from having kids; we're just trying to find some guidelines," she said.

Well, let's see. In cases where an unmarried (in Indiana) person literally can't have a child without medical procedures--be it from slow sperm count, irregular ovulation, previous cancer of the testes/ovaries--it looks like the state would very well prevent this person from having a child. And if Senator Miller is trying to create some moral guidelines for in vitro fertilization based upon the ideal of the one mother/one father family, she's in the wrong business. Doesn't she realize that impossible-to-fulfill moral guidelines based upon increasingly scarce ideals are what churches are for?

Now, don't get me wrong. I'm not opposed to all restrictions on scientific means of conception--while I don't see what interest the state has in governing whose sperm enters whose egg, I'd agree that barring convicted child molesters from claiming legal parentage of a child is within the state's interest. But shouldn't this hold for all children, be they conceived in a uterus or a petri dish?
posted by Maureen at 5:17 PM