Tag: reproductive laws

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ND lawmakers define life as starting at conception

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BISMARCK, N.D. (AP) — North Dakota didn’t set out to become the abortion debate’s new epicenter.

It happened by accident, after a legislative caucus that once vetted abortion bills languished, leaving lawmakers to propose a flurry of measures — some cribbed from Wikipedia — without roadblocks.

Long dismissed as cold and inconsequential, North Dakota is now trying to enact the toughest abortion restrictions in the nation. The newly oil-rich red state may soon find itself in a costly battle over legislation foes describe as blatantly unconstitutional.

“It had to happen some place,” said Sen. John Andrist, a Crosby Republican who has served in the Legislature for more than two decades.

“I’m from the group who hates voting on abortion issues and who don’t like to play God,” said Andrist, who describes himself as “moderately pro-life” and has voted for some but not all of the restrictions North Dakota has taken up this year. “But we have some strong-willed people in this state who do.”

Lawmakers on Friday took a step toward outlawing abortion altogether in the state by passing a so-called personhood resolution that says a fertilized egg has the same right to life as a person. The House’s approval sends the matter to voters, who will decide whether to add the wording to the state’s constitution in November 2014. Read full article.

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Surrogate mother had the right to choose

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istock_000017606854xsmall(CNN) — If you can come up with a tale that better illustrates America’s messed-up moral views on abortion, parenting and personal freedom than the story of Crystal Kelley — the surrogate mother who was offered $10,000 by the parents to abort the fetus she was carrying for them — then you’ve got a better imagination than I do.

Let’s run through the story quickly: Kelley had agreed to be a surrogate and was being paid $2,222 a month by the parents for her trouble. But an ultrasound scan of the fetus showed serious abnormalities. Fearing that the child would never lead a normal life — whatever that may be — the parents asked Kelley to abort.

Although the surrogacy agreement contained a clause to this effect, Kelley refused. This is where things became, to put it charitably, unseemly.

The parents offered Kelly an extra $10,000 to terminate the pregnancy. Although she said she was against abortion for religious and moral reasons, Kelley eventually thought she might be able to quash those ethical qualms if the parents paid her $15,000 — $5,000 apparently being the difference between “against” and “fine with it.” The parents refused, and Kelley says she regretted the offer. Read full article.

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Genetic mother of twins wins historic Irish surrogacy case

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Dublin CourtsThe genetic mother of twins born through a surrogate pregnancy has won her court battle to be declared the legal mother on the children’s birth certificates.

In this landmark case the genetic mother defeated the Irish government. In the past Ireland had refused the mother’s demands to be recorded as a parent on the children’s birth certs. The Irish State’s defense for their stance had been the 1937 constitution, which states that the woman who gives birth to the baby is recorded as the mother.

On Tuesday Dublin High Court Justice Henry Abbott said that these 1937 laws governing birth certificates and parentage needed to be updated to reflect the growing use of artificial insemination, embryo implantation, and other fertility techniques.

The genetic mother in question, whose identity is withheld under Irish law, had been declared medically unable to carry her child. Her sister volunteered to serve as a surrogate mother. Read full article.

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When the Law Says a Parent Isn’t a Parent

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Reproductive battleIt is easy to interpret the popularity of a network television series like “Modern Family” as proof that we have mainstreamed the various and sweeping ways domestic life has reshaped itself over the past two decades. A nation of squares would not embrace a comedy about a badly dressed, middle-aged gay couple raising an adopted Vietnamese baby, we tell ourselves, no matter what they might say in Copenhagen or Berlin.

Gay rights are moving forward; single women now account for 41 percent of all births. Americans build caring families with lovers, friends and neighbors; from one-night stands and anonymous providers of genetic material. And yet, even in a place as progressive as New York, the legal system has been slow to synchronize to these altered realities.

It is hard to imagine anyone experiencing this more viscerally right now than a man named Jonathan Sporn, a 54-year-old pharmaceuticals executive living on the Upper West Side, who in a sense has fallen prey to a system that excessively privileges the conventional family models from which there seems to be a growing exodus. Read full article.

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Va. eugenics victims would receive compensation for sterilization under bill

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EugenicsIn Richmond — E. Lewis Reynolds was just a boy when his cousin hit him in the head with a rock, nearly killing him and triggering epileptic-like convulsions that lingered for some years.

His condition didn’t stop him from enlisting in the Marine Corps or serving his country in Korea and Vietnam during a 30-year military career.

But it was enough to classify a teenager as a “defective person” and order his compulsory sterilization under an infamous 1924 Virginia law whose aim was to build a more perfect society.

The state has already offered a formal apology for a selective-breeding policy that led to the sterilization of hundreds of mostly poor, uneducated men and women and served as one of the models for eugenics programs in other states and even Nazi Germany.

Now Reynolds, 85, thinks it’s time that Virginia pay compensation, too, to him and perhaps hundreds of others. Read full article.

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Sperm donors who know parents can apply to see children, court rules

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spermSperm donors who know the parents to whom they have donated can apply for contact with their biological children, a court has ruled. Previously this was not allowed.

Following Thursday’s ruling straight and gay couples who are considering conceiving using a sperm donor they know are being urged to establish the childrearing equivalent of a pre-nuptial agreement – a co-parenting deal.

The case, the first of its kind, involves two lesbian couples who were friends with a gay male couple. All three couples are in civil partnerships. One of the gay men is the biological father of both the children of one of the lesbian couples, the other man is the biological father of one child who is being brought up by the second lesbian couple.

The male couple applied to the family court for contact and residency of their biological children. The women contested the application, saying that this would infringe on their family life, but lost. Under the Human Fertilisation and Embryology Act same-sex couples are legal parents of children conceived through donated sperm, eggs or embryos in the same way that heterosexual couples are. Read full article.

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Girl born through in vitro fertilization, others testify on abortion before N.D. Legislature

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Alexis GrabingerBISMARCK — When Alexis Grabinger was in the womb, that womb belonged to her aunt.

The Jamestown High School senior and daughter of Democratic state Sen. John Grabinger, told the Senate Judiciary Committee Tuesday morning that she would not be alive if her mother had not been allowed to produce multiple eggs for in vitro fertilization. The other eggs were later destroyed, something that would be considered an abortion under a resolution before the committee.

“I strongly believe my parents and the doctors are not abortionists, but rather miracle workers who brought life when there was none,” Alexis said.

Alexis was speaking in opposition to Senate Concurrent Resolution 4009, sponsored by Sen. Margaret Sitte, R-Bismarck, which proposes to amend North Dakota’s constitution by simply adding, “the inalienable right to life of every human being at any stage of development must be recognized and defended.” Read full article.

 

 

 

 

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Infertility doctors and couples are fuming over a proposed bill in North Dakota

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Fargo, ND (WDAY TV) — A controversial piece of a abortion bill before the North Dakota Senate, has some couples and their infertility doctors fuming.

Senate Bill 2302 would limit the number of embryos a physician could transfer, and it would prevent a woman diagnosed with cancer, from storing embryos during chemotherapy.

Kathy Burgau, back in 1998, told the story of her cancer battle, hoping to have a family after chemotherapy, she had embryos frozen, so she could have children after cancer treatment. That was done here in Fargo, but this bill before the North Dakota senate tomorrow, does not allow us to freeze any embryos. It would make that illegal.

Dr. Stephanie Dahl, Reproductive Medicine Specialist: “If the bill passes, couples who want to freeze embryos before chemo, would have to go out of state. It is available now.”

And not just cancer patients. The proposed bill would limit the number of fertilized eggs an invitro-fertilization specialist could transfer into a patient during that cycle to two eggs. It could financially and emotionally cripple couples trying to conceive by way of IVF. Read full article.

 

 

 

 

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Lawyers for Catholic hospital argue that a fetus is not a person

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Canon City, Colorado (CNN) — Life begins at conception, according to the Catholic Church, but in a wrongful death suit in Colorado, a Catholic health care company has argued just the opposite.

A fetus is not legally a person until it is born, the hospital’s lawyers have claimed in its defense. And now it may be up to the state’s Supreme Court to decide.

Lori Stodghill was 28 weeks pregnant when she went to the emergency room of St. Thomas More Hospital in Canon City vomiting and short of breath, according to a court document. She went into cardiac arrest in the lobby.

“Lori looked up at me, and then her head went down on her chest,” said her husband, Jeremy Stodghill.

She died at age 31. Her unborn twin boys perished with her. That was New Year’s Day 2006. Stodghill, left behind to raise their then-2-year-old daughter alone, sued the hospital and its owner, Catholic Health Initiatives, for the wrongful deaths of all three.

After about two years of litigation, defense attorneys for the hospital and doctors entered an argument that shocked the widower. Read full article.

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Unlikely Coalition Fights Contraception Mandate

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Abortion opponents rallying by the thousands Friday in Washington at the annual March for Life have lost some political battles lately but won a string of court victories, thanks in part to a diverse coalition challenging a contraception mandate in the health care overhaul.

For-profit businesses, state attorneys general and educational institutions are among more than 100 plaintiffs who have mounted some 40 lawsuits challenging the mandate, according to the Becket Fund for Religious Liberty, a nonprofit legal institute that has played a leading role in the suits. With lower courts in dispute over the mandate, both sides agree the issue will almost inevitably be settled by the Supreme Court.

The mandate requires employer-sponsored health care plans to cover contraception, including intrauterine devices and emergency birth control drugs that many religious employers equate with abortion. The Obama administration offered a narrow exemption for religious organizations and required insurers, not employers, to pay for the services. However, opponents remain unsatisfied. Read full article.