California Right to Life submitted the following in an August 7, 2023 letter to the Assembly Appropriations Committee regarding SB 729, a bill that would redefine infertility to include those who do not conceive because they are single or in a same-sex relationship and would mandate that insurance companies cover in vitro fertilization (IVF) for all “infertile” people.
Update: On September 6, SB 729 was designated a "two-year bill," since it does not have the support to pass this year. It will be considered again next year.
On behalf of California Right to Life I urge you to oppose SB 729, which violates three fundamental rights of a child: the right to his or her parents, the right to life, and the right to be free.
Every child has a right to his or her own mother and father.
Adoption is a praise-worthy and child-centric attempt to fill the void when a child has lost his or her biological parents. In contrast, the point of third party conception, in vitro fertilization (IVF), and surrogacy is to create children without their biological parents in order to satisfy the desires of adults.
According to committee analyses of SB 729, the author has said that this bill will “ensure that queer couples no longer have to pay more out-of-pocket to start families than non-queer families” and is “critical to achieving full lived equality for LGBTQ+ people.”
SB 729 would require that insurance companies fund the creation of orphans. Studies repeatedly show emotional and physical harm to children who lack a mother or a father,[1] but SB 729 is expressly designed to create children who will grow up without one or the other.
Every child has a right to life.
Only a tiny fraction of the children created in labs survive to birth. The vast majority are abandoned by their contracting parents because they have genetic abnormalities, are the wrong sex, are no longer desired, or merely are extra. They are then destroyed by researchers or simply left to perish in freezers. Two-thirds of those who are chosen for gestation die in utero, either accidentally or intentionally. Some are aborted because their contracting parents don’t want twins, triplets, or more. Some are abandoned or aborted when their contracting parents split up.[2]
Occasionally a surrogate mother’s resistance to contracting parents’ pressure to abort one or more of the children makes the news,[3] but the children abandoned as embryos have no advocates.
IVF denies children their right to life.
Every child has a right to not be bought or sold.
In vitro fertilization and surrogacy place price tags on the babies they produce. Frequently, sperm and eggs are purchased and a uterus is rented in order to fulfill adults’ desire for children. Even if the purchasing parents contribute their own genetic material to produce children via IVF, they commission and pay for children conceived by technicians in a lab. IVF treats human beings as commodities.
SB 729 is a gross violation of the natural rights of children to be conceived and cared for by their parents.
SB 729 is also a clear violation of the rights of children as laid out in the United Nations’ Declaration of the Rights of a Child, which states
“The child, by reason of his physical and mental immaturity, needs special safeguards and care, including appropriate legal protection, before as well as after birth,”
“The child…shall be given opportunities and facilities, by law and by other means, to enable him to develop physically, mentally, morally, spiritually and socially in a healthy and normal manner and in conditions of freedom and dignity,”
“The child who is physically, mentally or socially handicapped shall be given the special treatment, education and care required by his particular condition,”
“The child…shall, wherever possible, grow up in the care and under the responsibility of his parents, and, in any case, in an atmosphere of affection and of moral and material security; a child of tender years shall not, save in exceptional circumstances, be separated from his mother,”
“The child shall be protected against all forms of neglect, cruelty and exploitation. He shall not be the subject of traffic, in any form.”[4]
The desires of adults, however basic or urgent, should not be gratified at the expense of the rights and well being of children.
[1] · Regnerus, Mark. How different are the adult children of parents who have same-sex relationships? Findings from the New Family Structures Study, Social Science Research, Volume 41, Issue 4, 2012, Pages 752-770, ISSN 0049-089X, https://doi.org/10.1016/j.ssresearch.2012.03.009 · Sullins, Donald, The Unexpected Harm of Same-Sex Marriage: A Critical Appraisal, Replication and Re-Analysis of Wainright and Patterson's Studies of Adolescents with Same-Sex Parents (August 2015). Available at SSRN: https://ssrn.com/abstract=2589129 · Sullins, Donald, Emotional Problems among Children with Same-Sex Parents: Difference by Definition (January 25, 2015). British Journal of Education, Society and Behavioural Science 7(2):99-120, 2015, Available at SSRN: https://ssrn.com/abstract=2500537 · Rennie Burke, Yvette Ollada Lavery, Gali Katznelson, Joshua North, J. Wesley Boyd. How Do Individuals Who Were Conceived Through the Use of Donor Technologies Feel About the Nature of their Conception? Harvard Medical School (April 2021) https://bioethics.hms.harvard.edu/journal/donor-technology [2] www.dailymail.co.uk/femail/article-12311003/Inside-Sofia-Vergaras-BITTER-custody-battle-pro-life-ex-Nick-Loeb-frozen-EMBRYOS.html [3] · www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-12254637/Surrogate-claims-gay-dads-told-terminate-pregnancy-24-weeks-cancer-diagnosis.html · www.khou.com/article/news/health/surrogate-mother-who-refused-abortion-launches-effort-to-change-laws/285-624461486 · nypost.com/2015/11/25/surrogate-carrying-triplets-says-dad-demanding-she-abort-one/ · www.ocregister.com/2017/09/20/surrogate-mom-fears-for-triplets-after-allegations-of-abuse-by-father/ · www.cbsnews.com/news/surrogate-mom-with-triplets-fights-biological-parents-on-abortion/ · www.cnn.com/2013/03/04/health/surrogacy-kelley-legal-battle/index.html [4] Declaration of the Rights of the Child, G.A. res. 1386 (XIV), 14 U.N. GAOR Supp. (No. 16) at 19, U.N. Doc. A/4354 (1959)
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