The fight for reproductive rights

Attention USA IF'ers: I've seen some of this on other's blogs and yesterday I got an email from Resolve, so I'm passing the information because our legislators need to hear from us, as we are the ones who have been through and will go through situations and choices affected by these bills. As someone has frequently written email and made visits to my own legislators in the past few years, it does work. They do hear us. Some even try to listen and act in accordance with what we, their voters, demand. It's easy to take a bit of action and putting a face on the bill really can make a difference!

Resolve seems to have done an adequate job giving a brief synopsis and the needed action here, so I'll just say do an even briefer summary here--these states have something brewing that is either a good or a bad thing for the IF community:

• Montana--attempting to redefine "person", which would give rights to embryos and affect IVF
• Passed in Committee
• Texas--attempting to redefine "human organism", which would give rights to embryos and affect IVF
• Not yet assigned to a Committee
• California--attempting to provide fertility preservation insurance coverage to men/women diagnosed with cancer
• Not yet even assigned to a Committee
• Arizona--attempting to change how egg/sperm donor records are retained and provided
• Passed favorably out of Committee
• North Dakota--attempting to redefine "human being", which would give rights to embryos (such as ability to be the victim of murder) and affect IVF
• Note: this craziness has passed the House and is now in the Senate
• Oklahoma--attempting to redefine "person", which would give rights to embryos and affect IVF
• Referred to Committee
• Iowa--attempting to redefine that life begins at conception, thus giving embryos full rights and affecting IVF
• Passed out of Subcommittee, now being reviewed in Committee
• Maryland--attempting to create commission to study surrogacy and gestational carriers; unknown what would be done with these findings, but one bill sponsor acknowledges she aims to ban surrogacy.
• In Committee....in BOTH the House and Senate
• Hawaii--attempting to increase mandated IVF coverage from one cycle to four completed cycles and removing stipulation that partners must be married.
• In Committee
• Washington--attempting to expand parental rights of partners and to establish standards and safeguards for surrogacy
• House voting taking place next week; if passed, will move on to the Senate

If you see your state or know people/family who do live in the listed states--get them to take some action! Write an email, make a phone call, pay a visit, post the information on their blog and fb. Some of these bills will never pass, some will come dangerously close, while few others will actually be approved. It's too easy to make your opinion known, so take a moment and do that now!