Infertility Coverage? Singles, Lesbians, and Unmarried Couples Need Not Apply

by Roxann MtJoy · 2010-04-26 12:37:00 UTC
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Want your health care plan to cover infertility treatment? You'd better be heterosexual and legally married. According to our friends over at the National Women's Law Center (NWLC), it seems that insurance companies in many states are only required to cover treatment if the patient is using her husband's sperm. This means you are out of luck if you are single, lesbian, or even in a committed-yet-unmarried heterosexual relationship.

Just for fun, let's look at this logically, shall we? Women who pay the exact same premiums for the exact same insurance plans are being denied the exact same health coverage as their peers, not because of medical reasons, but because of the government's opinion of their relationship status. In what world is that fair? As the NWLC said, "neither the state nor insurance companies should be making decisions about who is entitled to have children and who is not."

Of course, I might not know in which world that's fair, but let's not kid ourselves: in the world we live in, that's to be expected. When it comes to women's reproductive health and choices, the government just can't seem to keep it's paws off. Whether it is the FDA unfairly restricting access to emergency contraception, states passing invasive anti-choice laws, or Congress including the horrible Stupak-Pitts amendment in the recent health care reform, the government can't get enough of interfering with women's reproductive choices. That this attitude would extend to infertility treatment is sad, but it is hardly surprising.

This week is National Infertility Awareness Week. Infertility affects 7.3 million people in the United States. Since the medical condition itself does discriminate based on marital status or sexual orientation, it is unconscionable that coverage for the treatment would. To my knowledge, there is no medical condition (including erectile dysfunction) that a man can only have covered if he is married. Why, then, is it acceptable for the government and insurance companies to play Morality Police with women? Short answer: It isn't. End of story.

Photo credit: RogueSun Media

Roxann MtJoy is a freelance writer who previously worked as a case manager at a domestic violence shelter. She is currently attending graduate school for theater in Mount Vernon, N.Y.
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