Sorry for the late posting. Almost A Father site was down yesterday so I’m re-posting this from Facebook status yesterday. Let Fertility Freedom Ring!
I always think about what it must have been like when this country declared its independence.
It was such a remarkable proposition to build a country based on the concepts of life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness.
I often forget about the pursuit of happiness part.
It was a stroke of genius adding the ‘pursuit of’ before the happiness part.
The Family act of 2011 would provide a lifetime medical expense reimbursement for what amounts to the cost of one full cycle of IVF at most clinics.
It’s not a guaranteed thing.
But we’re free to pursue it with the power that life and liberty give us.
I can’t imagine what our life would have been like if we hadn’t had the freedom to pursue the happiness of parenthood without the help of infertility doctors.
I learned this year that freedom is threatened by two powerfully oppressive forces.
One is anti family building legislation that keeps popping up across the country.
I had my first experience speaking out against one of those pieces of legislation when it made its way into the Arizona senate.
Fortunately it stalled before a vote could be taken, and for now it will not create another obstacle for Arizonans pursuing parenthood happiness through IVF.
The other is the growing financial burden that infertility treatment is putting on fertility challenged couples.
I see more and more posts on infertility by couples lamenting the lack of financial resources they have access to as their biological clocks tick off precious reproductive seconds.
Why there are so many ‘Ds’ next the supporters of this bill and hardly any ‘Rs’ is beyond puzzling to me.
The ‘Rs’ that I grew up with and still consider myself politically aligned with seem so family oriented.
Yet something about the political representation makes them reluctant or unable to support what seems like a no-brainer to help people pursue something that arguably provides a great deal of happiness to many American families: parenthood.
I plan to be a part of breakthroughs this year on both of these issues in the hopes it will give more aspiring but reproductively challenged couples more freedom to pursue their visions of motherhood and fatherhood.
If those efforts pay off, next year we’ll hear the the ring of fertility freedom in the form of more IVF success stories!
Happy Independence Day!
Denny:
You and I seem to be of the same political persuasion. I have been a Republican since I was old enough to vote and was very politically active in the GOP out here in California at one time. When I first began to follow the Family Act, I thought for sure that some Republicans would be on board. Me and many of my fellow GOP comrades are all for government letting people keep more of their money or at least giving the people some type of tax relief. Also, the GOP has traditionally believed in the family as the bedrock of society (one of the big reasons I became a Republican)–this is another reason why their stance is so strange to me.
I can certainly understand where some Republicans are coming from on Personhood legislation (especially if they are staunchly pro-life), but on tax credits, I am puzzled.