28 October 2008

Fertility police

As if the entire process to undergo IVF wasn't hard enough already, according to new legislation in Victoria, women seeking IVF will have to undergo CRIMINAL CHECKS in order to receive treatment. On top of the already long process of medical examinations and screening women have to undergo to receive treatment, the new bill would 'would deny people access to treatment if a conviction for sexual, serious violent offence had been recorded or if the person had a child protection order made against them.'

I thought it was particularly horrible when lesbians were being denied IVF without medical documentation of infertility. Now, all Australian women are going to be subject to what amounts to a criminal background check when they are already feeling pretty vulnerable. What is really astounding is that Australians with a criminal record are procreating willy nilly and no one seems to care because they can do it 'naturally'.

The Victorian police have no business or right to interfere with Australian wombs.

Source: http://www.news.com.au/heraldsun/story/0,21985,24562002-2862,00.html
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1 comment:

Anonymous said...

Well just because teenagers will often drive without a drivers licence (and some actually survive the experience) should we just abandon licensing procedures for cars?

So some criminals breed. We can't do much about that. But we can prevent criminals getting access to scarce resources in order to do so. Fair enough.

I would object to a financial test for IVF because I don't believe the poor have no right to have kids. Many people disagree with that and think it is "financially irresponsible" to have kids unless you can buy yourself a retirement home within 5 years (I'm not doubting you'll feel like you need to retire). But I don't think criminals are on a par with the poor. They are not victims of circumstance. They are asking for special intervention to enable them to breed, so if society objects to bringing kids into criminal families so be it.

Why the hooha?

The Victorian Police, I admit are not the best judges. But judges are and ultimately they will judge the VicPolice decisions on criminality. Now if you were talking about what the Vic Police might do to mentally ill IVF applicants approaching a clinic armed with a veggie peeler then I would be concerned.

2:05 PM

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