Infertilitism: unjustified discrimination of assisted reproduction patients

Ryan Tonkens

Current law in Victoria, Australia requires that all prospective assisted reproduction patients provide a criminal background check and child protection order check prior to being eligible for treatment. These presumptions against treatment stipulated in the Assisted Reproductive Treatment Act ( http://www.legislation.vic.gov.au/domino/web_notes/ldms/pubstatbook.nsf/f932b66241ecf1b7ca256e92000e23be/3ADFC9FBA2C0F526CA25751C0020E494/$FILE/08-076a.pdf , 2008) are discriminatory against all people that are infertile. Requiring assistance in founding a family says nothing about whether someone will be a minimally decent parent to their (future) child. The most plausible justifications for this differential treatment of family builders that require assistance are unsound. The wellbeing of the resulting child is something that the prospective patient(s) should be presumed to have at heart, as this is the default assumption with other kinds of family builders that do not require assistance. That assisted reproduction treatment is publicly funded does not mean that the state is thereby justified in putting moral conditions on access to treatment. As we should not accept discriminatory laws, especially about practices that are of fundamental importance to the lives of citizens, the presumptions against treatment stipulated in ARTA should be eradicated.