LESBIANS! UNITE AGAINST OPPRESSION!

This entry has a convoluted origin, but here goes…

I saw a story at Stream about a lesbian couple who are suing New Jersey, which is oppressing them.  Get this…

Erin and Marianne Krupa, a lesbian couple struggling to get pregnant due to infertility, [first of all… a “couple” getting pregnant is goofy, but a couple of women?] are suing the commissioner of the New Jersey Department of Banking and Insurance, reportsThe New York Times. The couple’s lawsuit alleges the healthcare mandate is discriminating against their sexual orientation.  [They want to have the fertility treatments paid for by someone else.]

Erin, the one who is going to carry the child, was determined to be infertile after a doctor diagnosed her with benign cysts on her uterus and Stage 3 endometriosis. The couple’s healthcare provider, Horizon Blue Cross Shield, said that it would not provide coverage for Erin’s fertility treatments. They referred to a state insurance mandate that said that most women under 35 have to prove they are infertile by having unprotected sex for two years.  [The State of NJ is oppressing them!]

The couple, along with two other women, are suing the commissioner because they say the mandate is discriminating against them.

In the lawsuit, the plaintiffs claim that because the Supreme Court ruled in Obergefell v. Hodges[abomination] that the 14th Amendment guaranteed same-sex couples the right to marry, [wait for it…] it also protects their right to reproduce.  [They have a RIGHT!]

[…]

In the lawsuit, the plaintiffs ask for damages associated with having to pay for their own fertility treatments

Obergefell v. Hodges, ladies and gentlemen… and other or … both.  The gift that keeps on giving.

I saw that Rod Dreher also wrote about this sob-provoking, state oppression of poor infertile lesbians.  HERE

Then someone in my email inbox reminded me of this, from the really funny (but sometimes blasphemous) Monty Python movie Life of Brian. Stan wants to be a women!  Transcript below if you have a hard time getting it all.

JUDITH: I do feel, Reg, that any Anti-Imperialist group like ours must reflect such a divergence of interests within its power-base.
REG: Agreed. Francis?
FRANCIS: Yeah. I think Judith’s point of view is very valid, Reg, provided the Movement never forgets that it is the inalienable right of every man–
STAN: Or woman.
FRANCIS: Or woman… to rid himself–
STAN: Or herself.
FRANCIS: Or herself.
REG: Agreed.
FRANCIS: Thank you, brother.
STAN: Or sister.
FRANCIS: Or sister. Where was I?
REG: I think you’d finished.
FRANCIS: Oh. Right.
REG: Furthermore, it is the birthright of every man–
STAN: Or woman.
REG: Why don’t you shut up about women, Stan. You’re putting us off.
STAN: Women have a perfect right to play a part in our movement, Reg.
FRANCIS: Why are you always on about women, Stan?
STAN: I want to be one.
REG: What?
STAN: I want to be a woman. From now on, I want you all to call me ‘Loretta’.
REG: What?!
LORETTA: It’s my right as a man.
JUDITH: Well, why do you want to be Loretta, Stan?
LORETTA: I want to have babies.
REG: You want to have babies?!
LORETTA: It’s every man’s right to have babies if he wants them.
REG: But… you can’t have babies.
LORETTA: Don’t you oppress me.
REG: I’m not oppressing you, Stan. You haven’t got a womb! Where’s the foetus going to gestate?! You going to keep it in a box?!
LORETTA: crying
JUDITH: Here! I– I’ve got an idea. Suppose you agree that he can’t actually have babies, not having a womb, which is nobody’s fault, not even the Romans’, but that he can have the right to have babies.
FRANCIS: Good idea, Judith. We shall fight the oppressors for your right to have babies, brother. Sister. Sorry.
REG: What’s the point?
FRANCIS: What?
REG: What’s the point of fighting for his right to have babies when he can’t have babies?!
FRANCIS: It is symbolic of our struggle against oppression.
REG: Symbolic of his struggle against reality.

About Fr. John Zuhlsdorf

Fr. Z is the guy who runs this blog. o{]:¬)
This entry was posted in Pò sì jiù, Sin That Cries To Heaven, The Coming Storm, The future and our choices, Throwing a Nutty, You must be joking! and tagged , . Bookmark the permalink.

33 Comments

  1. CatholicHistoryNerd says:

    What I find Python-level absurd here is the state’s mandate about proving infertility by having unprotected sex for two years. How exactly does one document that to the insurance’s satisfaction? Will they also demand proof that you had intercourse during your fertile phase?

    Lesbians aside, this sounds like a stingy insurance company putting up roadblocks so they can avoid paying for things. Failing to conceive after only 1 year of trying is the usual determination of infertility – BCBS is demanding twice that long, even though the patient has a clear diagnosis of real medical issues. PCOS and endometriosis are no laughing matter, as many women on NFP message boards can painfully attest.

    So while the couple has wrapped their case in the trendy mantle of LGBT rights, they’re also just pushing for an insurance carrier to acknowledge medical reality. Have you ever tried to negotiate with an insurance company, Father? They’re worse than liturgists. Who knows, maybe some nice Catholic TTC couple with the state insurance would benefit from this legal precedent down the line.

  2. Atra Dicenda, Rubra Agenda says:

    I’m not an OB/GYN but if I remember correctly from medical school…infertility is by definition inability to conceive in 12 months despite sexual intercourse without contraceptive measures. This affects ~15% of couples.

    It apparently affects 100% of gay couples.

    What I find frustrating is that we are constantly told by the culture that gay sex and straight sex are just different types of the same thing. But by their fruit (or lack thereof) you can see they are different.

    The narrative is that its all the same: gay/straight/2spirit/etc. This is what is said again and again and again until everyone believes it. Then we we have to deal with the reality that its not the same, these people are happy at that time to admit that what they are doing is different and incapable to producing some ends that they desire which are the common end to traditional sexual mores for 85% + of straight couples. They want everyone to say its the same, until its inconvenient or expensive and then they are happy to admit that its different.

  3. TheDude05 says:

    My question would be why should the insurance company be forced to pay for fertility treatment, or in other words for everyone using that insurance to pay for it? People have an ability to reproduce or they don’t, their is no right to reproduction. In this case, even if the precedent could help a nice Catholic couple down the road (which depends on the fertility treatment being sought as IVF would endanger their souls) it allows for an abomination in this case.

  4. belovedcatherine says:

    What I find most interesting about this is that the philosophy undergirding Obergefell v. Hodges is based on the separation of marriage and procreation. While Christians understand that procreation is one of the primary ends of marriage, society has split the two, thus making the idea of same sex unions seem equal to the union of a man and a woman – ultimately, they say it is simply two consenting adults.

    That these two women would argue that a right to procreation (which is an absurd concept for any couple to claim) is protected under their right to marriage – that is quite a stunning reversal of the entire idea.

  5. mo7 says:

    Rule #1 Lesbian reproduction is an absurdity. Of course the Pythons would pick up on this. They can’t assert as a right something that is a natural impossibility, even if same sex marriage is the law of the land. The absurdity of lesbian reproduction, should stand in glaring opposition to same sex marriage in the first instance. How could the non-pregnant partner assert any standing to sue at all when she obviously has no ability to create a child with the other woman? I’m sorry I keep forgetting rule #1.

  6. Venerator Sti Lot says:

    The putative “right to reproduce” (in the absence of any indications to the contrary in the reporting) may be presumed to include (a) the ‘right’ to someone else’s gametes, (b) the ‘right’ to cause one or more human beings to come into existence in vitro (and (c) the ‘right’ to have any of them to be subject to discretionary killing), and (d) the ‘right’ to the use of the womb of a third party to attempt to bear any child(ren) so conceived.

    In the absence of a ready, or for whatever reason, ‘satisfactory’ supply of gamete(s) or third-party womb, does it include the ‘right’ to compel people to supply these?

    In the absence of willing, or for whatever reason ‘preferred’, practitioners, does it include the ‘right’ to compel someone to obtain gametes, attempt to cause one or more human beings to come into existence in vitro, carry out any discretionary killing of any of them, and procure a third-party to bear any child(ren) so conceived and compel her to receive the embryonic child(ren) into her womb?

    I see no reason that any of this is excluded from the logic of the putative “right to reproduce”.

  7. Venerator Sti Lot says:

    The putative “right to reproduce” also includes the state as guarantor that all the other people involved will be compelled to do whatever is required of them.

  8. Matthew says:

    Have they thought that her medical issues might not be the cause of her infertility. Perhaps – I know this is a stretch – it is because they are both women.

    Now I have 12 years of nuns in school, but I believe they covered that bit about requiring a man and a woman. Someone should inform these ladies before they get all lawyered up.

  9. JabbaPapa says:

    even though the patient has a clear diagnosis of real medical issues

    Are they BOTH sterile ?

  10. catholictrad says:

    “Symbolic of his struggle against reality.”
    This has been my mantra for decades in response to all Liberal tomfoolery. Their fantasy life doesn’t warrant my participation!

    Men can’t be women. You can’t spend your way out of debt. Lack of a man in a relationship doesn’t constitute “infertility”. Going to church on Sunday doesn’t make an abortion-pusher Catholic. Wearing a funny hat doesn’t make one a scientist.

    The biggest lesson living in this Western Fantasyland is that “common” sense is an oxymoron.

  11. APX says:

    Matthew,

    Infertility almost always goes with Stage III Endometriosis. There’s a very slim chance of being able to conceive when one has advanced stages of Endometriosis. I’m surprised she doesn’t get a hysterectomy.

  12. OldProfK says:

    “…ultimately, they say it is simply two consenting adults.”

    For now.

  13. Aegidius says:

    Let us pray for the poor child that is ultimately going to grow up without a father and in insane circumstances, no matter who pays for his/her “production”.
    It is sad thad this world is so full with egoism and reckless selfishness.

  14. Venerator Sti Lot says:

    JabbaPappa & APX,

    Follow the link’s link to the original New York Times story for more details (including the insurance company relenting at a later stage), though the medical details seem far from sufficient! Erin has meanwhile had an ectopic pregnancy, whereupon the child was killed by “chemotherapy”, and Marianne has had to miscarriages.

  15. Venerator Sti Lot says:

    “two”!

  16. pfreddys says:

    Actually the regulation which would make the most sense would be to ban any Dr. Frankenstein method of conception.

  17. Venerator Sti Lot says:

    Aegidius,

    Yes, indeed! IVF (which comes into the suit) as usually practiced is a slaughterous matter, too – not only in background but in daily practice. The world has more and more children who should be properly dismayed about the killing that has surrounded their “production” (though they know they are guiltless themselves).

  18. chantgirl says:

    Venerator Sti Lot – Yes, taken to its logical conclusion, a “right to reproduce” would be a “right to someone’s sperm”, and a “right to someone’s egg” and a “right to someone’s womb”. This case might only be about having insurance pay for operations for this woman’s endometriosis, but the precedent it would set would open the door to baby factories in which embryos are produced (the unfit ones being discarded), and either hired or, eventually, artificial wombs being employed as incubators. And while we’re at it, we might as well use those embryos to grow some extra organs for transplanting. Maybe then people in need of transplants will argue that they have a right to an artificially grown organ, no matter where it comes from. Of course, someone has to pay for these services, and we’ve seen how willing governments are to force citizens to pay for abortions via insurance premiums and taxes. What makes us think that we won’t be forced to pay for this as well?

    It would be laughable if it wasn’t so serious. The West has lost its mind. Just as you will get different answers about abortion from the pro-abort crowd ( is abortion killing a human, or just removing a blob of tissue?), we are now hearing that marriage isn’t about procreation until it is, and that we should accept people as God made them unless they want to change their sex because God made a mistake.

  19. Scott W. says:

    Another example of people’s sexual preference being supposedly 0% our business and yet 100% our financial responsibility.

  20. Gail F says:

    This is exactly what the (AFAIK) ongoing “Manif Pour Tous” demonstrations in France have been about. The French legalization of “gay marriage” legalized IVF and surrogacy for gay couples. French objectiions to this were not based on sexual proclivity but on the rights of children to their own families, and the rights of women not to be treated as incubators. Obergefell included 6 different cases, not all of them about marriage only – one was filed by two women who wanted both their names on “their” chidlren’s birth certificates – no male name at all. It is literally insane.

  21. John Grammaticus says:

    and I remember when this was considered satire ……

  22. HeatherPA says:

    There are so many people demanding “rights” that are absurd to demand from the State, I fear that those who have perfectly functioning ovaries, kidneys, lungs, livers, etc… will be forced at some point in the future to share their “good fortune” with these people who demand their “right” to have their “fair share”.

    Come, Lord Jesus.

  23. un-ionized says:

    HeatherPA, I don’t understand people like that. I can’t have children (though I could have adopted) but I figured it was just because God has something else for me to do.

  24. Venerator Sti Lot says:

    chantgirl,

    Yes, there are many insistently working on, or blithely going along with, making ‘the west’ (and/or the English-speaking world, or ‘historic Christendom’) as bad as the worst of ‘the rest’. There is, indeed, a big push to develop being able to treat some some folks as solely transplantable-organ sources.

    HeatherPA,

    I’ve already read about a fair amount of ‘moral blackmail’ in that direction in European (‘Christian’!) circles. And a lot of places have followed Singapore’s ‘historic’ lead in treating any and everybody as ‘volunteer organ donor’ in the case of ‘defined death’, unless they explicitly opt out. (And I wonder how many ‘mistaken omissions’ those digital ‘opt out’ registers include?)

  25. WYMiriam says:

    Venerator Sti Lot — right you are!! (sorry, I couldn’t resist)

    One thing that is missing (on the other side, in particular) in this discussion is that RIGHTS come with attendant RESPONSIBILITIES, which necessarily come either before or exactly contemporaneously with the right(s). Unfortunately, children have become a commodity, to be bought and sold (although we don’t call it that, preferring malphemisms like “in vitro fertilization” and “surrogate motherhood”).

    Scott W. — yes, it’s a case of “I play, you pay”, isn’t it??

  26. TheDude05 says:

    I wonder if they have thought this through to all logical conclusions. If someone has the right to reproduce couldn’t a rapist use that as a legitimate defense? Look at it from the bakery kerfuffle, I have a right to reproduce and even though this individual has a right to their body they cannot use that as an excuse to deny me my rights.

  27. HeatherPA says:

    May God bless you for carrying such a cross with an accepting attitude of God’s will or your life.

    As for the people with the views I expressed above, one must have God in their life to accept what He gives them. These people, by and large do not know Him at all
    or have rejected Him completely. That makes this kind of thing easy to embrace for those people.
    The ones who claim to know and serve God (but support this nonsense), have a disordered idea of Him, claiming that He “allowed” these technologies to be invents to help people like them, which is not at all the truth.

    Both of these groups need abundant prayers.

  28. HeatherPA says:

    Paragraph 1- *for

    Paragraph 2- *invented

  29. tioedong says:

    As a doc, I’m still trying to figure out the part about “benign cyst of the uterus”. Does she have ovarian cysts (polycystic ovary syndrome, which is common in lesbians because it increases testosterone levels) or does she have (benign) fibroid tumors of the uterus? As for endometriosis: That is alas a cause of infertility in older women.

    All of these things would have medical or surgical treatment paid for by any insurance company.

    What I suspect is that she is asking for the insurance companies to pay for In Vitro fertilization, which is very expensive…Alas, the chance of pregnancy for stage 3 endometriosis would be 35 % in three cycles, and if she has fibroids of the uterus, the chance would be lower unless she gets them removed.

    So it might not be her lesbian status, but her medical status behind the insurance turn down of treating her problem.
    http://www.endometriosisinstitute.com/endometriosis/treatment-of-infertility

    and let me correct a previous comment about ectopic pregnancy.
    As a Catholic, I recommend surgical removal of the growing fetus and the tube where it is implanted (which usually is rupturing and bleeding by the time you diagnose it, meaning the fetus is dead too)… This is morally acceptable for Catholics.

    Using Methotrexate to save the mother’s life by killing the growing fetus is commonly done nowadays, and is not morally acceptable for Catholic… but this is not quite the same thing as choosing to kill the kid by abortion.

  30. Venerator Sti Lot says:

    tioedong,

    Thank you for the medical details! It would be welcome if you could address the original New York Times account even more thoroughly, letting us know what sense you can make of more of it, as you have done so far!

    Thanks especially for the elucidation and correction concerning ectopic pregnancy! When I said “whereupon the child was killed by ‘chemotherapy’ ” that was a conjectural attempt on my part to make sense of the reporter’s account, which (not surprisingly, in my experience) said nothing explicitly about the child or her or his state at any point. (My memory has gotten pretty fuzzy about ectopic pregnancies, and my reading up in textbooks as a young SPUC & LIFE member was probably fairly limited at best – I remember horrific ‘mainstream’ press discussions sometime in the 1980s suggesting attaching developing children to the bowels of males so they could be ‘pregnant’!)

  31. un-ionized says:

    tioedong, I guess there are no set solutions to this problem of ectopic pregnancy that fit everybody. I know a woman who had one who is a faithful Catholic and she was given methotrexate in order to save the fallopian tube on that side. The reasoning was the embryo was already deceased and they needed to save the integrity of her body now. She was very sick from the methotrexate for many months of course and she told me she would have preferred the surgery because then she would have a reduced chance of pregnancy in the future as she had 5 children already and wouldn’t have had the sickness that affected her ability to take care of her family as well.

  32. WYMiriam says:

    Forgot to add this the first time I posted –

    Can you say “Brave New World?”

  33. KateD says:

    Lol

    Nailed it.

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