On Monday, I wrote about the draft issue memorandum the Legislative Research Council produced on surrogacy laws. I noted that anti-surrogacy, anti-LGBT, anti-family Representative Jon Hansen (R-25/Dell Rapids) would probably take umbrage at the issue memo’s characterization of South Dakota as “surrogacy-friendly” and its suggestion that “instituting clear laws and regulations can provide certainty to prospective parents and surrogates.”
Rep. Hansen didn’t just take umbrage; he took a chainsaw to the memo, demanding that it be torn up:
Representative Jon Hansen, a Republican from Dell Rapids, called for the surrogacy memo to be rejected, arguing it was flawed. The lawyer isn’t currently on the board. House members approved his attempt to prohibit commercial surrogacy contracts in the 2020 session, but his bill died in a Senate committee.
…Hansen disputed some of the memo’s points Tuesday and said parts weren’t neutral. LRC attorney Matthew Frame said the goal in writing it was to “go down the middle” and reflect that South Dakota doesn’t have state laws specifically on surrogacy [Bob Mercer, “S.D. Legislators Get Latest Round of Issue Memos, But a Majority Makes One on Surrogacy Vanish,” KELO-TV, 2020.11.17].
Flawed? No, the LRC didn’t misstate any facts about South Dakota’s lack of clear surrogacy laws or the nature of surrogacy laws in other states. Not neutral? No, the LRC didn’t advocate for or against surrogacy. Yes, the LRC spoke of the positive effect that clear laws and regulation can have, but that’s the fundamental principle behind every statement and action of the LRC, which provides research and guidance to the Legislature and the public to help craft correct and effective legal language.
But useful, objective facts on surrogacy laws must get in the way of whatever terrible ideological agenda Hansen and his one-party regime are preparing for us. Hansen’s Republican pals portrayed this simple, straightforward, unoffensive explanation of surrogacy laws as an objectionable intrusion into some great controversy:
Representative Spencer Gosch, a Glenham Republican, apologized to Frame and said the board shouldn’t have requested a memo on such a contentious issue. “I think we cut your Achilles tendons and told you to go run,” Gosch said.
The discussion took more than an hour. Senator Brock Greenfield, a Clark Republican and the board’s chairman this year, said that, during consideration of Hansen’s bill, he started on one side and wound up on the other. “It’s one of those issues that’s very dicey within the Legislature,” Greenfield told Frame.
…The board decided 11-2 to withdraw its previous directive for an issue memo on surrogacy and said the draft should be removed from the LRC website [Mercer, 2020.11.17].
How absurd: contentious issues need the LRC’s careful study and sharing of objective information most of all. But evidently Hansen and the Republicans don’t want facts getting in the way of the narrative they want to define when they wage their culture war.
The Governor and Republican sycophants have spoken repeatedly ad nauseam about the importance of personal choice as a fundamental right regarding the spread of a potentially harmful/deadly virus. But when the issue is reproduction, personal choice is absent from their pronouncements. What is consistent is their avoidance of dealing with objective facts. Kudos to the LRC for producing an objective summation about surrogacy.
Incredible how faux christians hate liberals six days a week, then pretend to worship one on Sunday.
That is so true, John. Jesus was a beautiful, kind, loving, peaceful and sensitive soul that definitely leaned more to the left than to the money-obsessed conservative right. He would be saddened at the Military Industrial Complex the US has become and how much wealth the top one percent owns.
grudznick, born of a surrogate and user of them too, is a big fan of surrogacy, but you have to admit this is ripping up of the council’s homework paper by the legislatures is pretty funny.
grudznick, in what way funny?