IVF treatment
15 Aug 2005 03:09 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
kangeikohttp://www.timesonline.co.uk/newspaper/0,,170-1735285,00.html
'Lesbians' is now the catch-all term for all non-married women: you heard it here first.
There is not a single newspaper that I have seen that reported this story with any other headline than 'lesbians blah blah blah IVF'. Because, obviously, if you are not married, you are a lesbian.
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queenspanky, please direct your boy to this article. I know that I occasionally foam at the mouth and rant about patriarchy, but as the above is timely and topical re: our recent discussion regarding heteropatriarchy and new reproductive technologies, I want to take this opportunity to rant some more.
queenspanky's boy is bright, modern, and took a feminism class with athena25 and myself in Ye Olde Burgh. During a recent discussion, he expressed disbelief that I could use the words 'IVF' and 'patriarchy' in the same sentence, to complain about the lack of choice that women have vis-a-vis their bodies and birth in Brtiain. I took it as a positive sign that he could not comprehend the fact that the status quo denies single women the chance to have children - indeed, he said that my facts must have been confused along the way, because that makes no sense whatso-fucking-ever.
Would that it were so, darling.
"Lesbians and single women are poised to win the right to seek in-vitro fertilisation treatment in the first overhaul of Britain’s fertility laws for 15 years." reads the first sentence of this Times article. Yes, prior to this overhaul, our IVF laws were those written in the late eighties. They were written by the same people that sought to eliminate homosexuality as a concept. Thatcherite laws have governed who could and could not seek IVF treatment. Invariably, these were women in stable long-term relationships, prefereably married.
Those that did not conform to this image of motherhood - and who could not provide evidence of a 'male role model' for the child - would not, ordinarily, be granted the right to such treatment, unless they could show proof that an uncle or similar would provide a male role model.
Under this legislation, as I pointed out to my friend, I would not be able to have IVF treatment. I am not in a long-term relationship, and do not see myself in one any time soon. Therefore, I would not be able to seek such treatment until I 'settled down' - presumably with a man, which is an interesting way of crowbarring bisexuals into the heteronormative mould - which could be far, far too late for me to conceive.
So, yes, perhaps I was scarily militant last Friday. But it is important - not least because "there are no plans to offer single women or lesbians fertility treatment on the NHS, though private clinics could be banned from rejecting them."
So much for equality.
'Lesbians' is now the catch-all term for all non-married women: you heard it here first.
There is not a single newspaper that I have seen that reported this story with any other headline than 'lesbians blah blah blah IVF'. Because, obviously, if you are not married, you are a lesbian.
queenspanky, please direct your boy to this article. I know that I occasionally foam at the mouth and rant about patriarchy, but as the above is timely and topical re: our recent discussion regarding heteropatriarchy and new reproductive technologies, I want to take this opportunity to rant some more.queenspanky's boy is bright, modern, and took a feminism class with athena25 and myself in Ye Olde Burgh. During a recent discussion, he expressed disbelief that I could use the words 'IVF' and 'patriarchy' in the same sentence, to complain about the lack of choice that women have vis-a-vis their bodies and birth in Brtiain. I took it as a positive sign that he could not comprehend the fact that the status quo denies single women the chance to have children - indeed, he said that my facts must have been confused along the way, because that makes no sense whatso-fucking-ever.Would that it were so, darling.
"Lesbians and single women are poised to win the right to seek in-vitro fertilisation treatment in the first overhaul of Britain’s fertility laws for 15 years." reads the first sentence of this Times article. Yes, prior to this overhaul, our IVF laws were those written in the late eighties. They were written by the same people that sought to eliminate homosexuality as a concept. Thatcherite laws have governed who could and could not seek IVF treatment. Invariably, these were women in stable long-term relationships, prefereably married.
Those that did not conform to this image of motherhood - and who could not provide evidence of a 'male role model' for the child - would not, ordinarily, be granted the right to such treatment, unless they could show proof that an uncle or similar would provide a male role model.
Under this legislation, as I pointed out to my friend, I would not be able to have IVF treatment. I am not in a long-term relationship, and do not see myself in one any time soon. Therefore, I would not be able to seek such treatment until I 'settled down' - presumably with a man, which is an interesting way of crowbarring bisexuals into the heteronormative mould - which could be far, far too late for me to conceive.
So, yes, perhaps I was scarily militant last Friday. But it is important - not least because "there are no plans to offer single women or lesbians fertility treatment on the NHS, though private clinics could be banned from rejecting them."
So much for equality.