California Legislation Would Mandate Fertility Coverage For Homsexuals

It’s simple biological reality that homosexual couplings cannot result in procreation. There’s just no getting around that fact. But in California state legislators are considering a new insurance mandate which would require coverage for infertility treatment for homosexuals who cannot have fertile relations with one another.

Legislation has been filed that would require group insurance to cover gay and lesbian infertility treatments just as they do heterosexual. But, as I note elsewhere, AB 460 isn’t limited to a finding of actual infertility. Nor does it require that gays and lesbians have tried to conceive or sire a child using heterosexual means, natural or artificial. Rather–as with heterosexual couples–merely the inability to get pregnant for a year while having active sexual relations is sufficient to demonstrate need for treatment, meaning if the bill becomes law, it would require insurance companies to pay for services such as artificial insemination, surrogacy, etc. for people who are actually fecund.

Obviously, the intent here is to create a loophole by which gay couples looking to have children can get options such as surrogacy and artificial insemination paid for by their insurance companies. But it’s really not fair to all the other insurance holders who will pay higher premiums as a result of this mandate.

And, while many gay activists won’t admit it, it’s this very sort of rent-seeking that drives much of the opposition to gay marriage. Were the issue one of simple morality, I think gay marriage would have ceased to be a controversial subject for national debate some time ago.

But it’s hard to argue with the idea that many gay activists want more than simple equality under the law, but preferential treatment under the law. This move in California is a case in point. People who aren’t gay don’t want to pay higher insurance prices for special benefits for people who are gay, under the guise of “equality.”

While I’m a support of gay marriage, it’s hard to argue with that.