Two Tennessee lawmakers have passed the Artificial Insemination Parenting Bill. The bill is now criticized by homosexuals because it will prevent them from becoming the legal parents of their child.
The Artificial Insemination Parenting Bill would greatly affect homosexual parents. It would stop one parent from becoming the legal parent because only one parent would be recognized by the law. Moreover, it might even prohibit both parents of a child if they are not part of the artificial insemination.
The LGBT community has warned the lawmakers about the bill. According to ABC, it might hinder same-sex couples from appearing on the children's birth certificates. It will take away their right to make decisions like medical care and education for their children.
Chris Sanders, the executive director of the Tennessee Equality Project, has voiced out his concern. He said that it would affect lesbian couple more, having two women as the parent would only make the birth mother as the legal mother of the baby. Heterosexuals couple will also have hard time with the new bill, said Sanders.
Another LGBT advocate has voice out her concern. "Clearly, the legislative intention behind both these bills is to stop lesbian couples from having the same automatic recognition of their parent-child relationships that opposite-sex couples have," Julia Tate-Keith, a Murfreesboro attorney specializing in adoption and surrogacy issues, said in a legal memo.
News Channel 5 has reported that the Artificial Insemination Parenting bill is sponsored by Republican state Rep. Terri Lynn Weaver. It also said that the bill would cancel 1977 state law that stated children born out of artificial insemination to be the lawful offspring of the husband and wife. Weaver defended the bill she sponsored saying it would not do any of those things.
The bill will not ask whose parent's sperm or egg cell the child came from. It would also not affect the current state of heterosexual couples, she added. She only proposed the law because of a recent divorce that is going on in Knoxville between two women.
