A fresh legislative proposal, SB 729, is currently under scrutiny in California’s state legislature, aiming to mandate insurance coverage of surrogacy expenses for homosexual couples intending to become parents.
As interpreted by the Washington Free Beacon, if this bill is passed, health insurance plans would be obligated to underwrite in vitro fertilization and surrogacy expenditures for couples, irrespective of their sexual orientation.
State Sen. Caroline Menjivar of Burbank, who penned the bill, has proposed an extended interpretation of “infertility,” defined as: “A person’s inability to reproduce either as an individual or with their partner without medical intervention.”
She further insists that “coverage for the treatment of infertility and fertility services shall be provided without discrimination on the basis of age, ancestry, color, disability, domestic partner status, gender, gender expression, gender identity, genetic information, marital status, national origin, race, religion, sex, or sexual orientation.” In addition, the bill would prohibit policies from ignoring the expenses linked to a “surrogate that enables an intended recipient to become a parent.”
The legislation, if enacted, would enforce a mandate on health insurers in California to cover fertility treatments.
As it stands now, such coverage is either optional or available through only specific companies’ benefits schemes.
A key modification stipulated in the bill is the redefinition of infertility and the elimination of in vitro fertilization exclusions from insurance coverage.
Predictably, the proposed law faces opposition from insurance providers, citing the elevated costs they would have to bear.
Moreover, conservative factions are also opposing the move.
That being said, the bill could potentially promote a culture of child-rearing, which is on a declining trend given the dropping birth rates in the country, by incentivizing couples, including same-sex couples, to have children.
Critics, like Greg Burt, Capitol Director of the California Family Council, voiced his concern, stating: “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.”
Read the full bill below:
