Assisted
reproduction bill passes California senate

A medical procedure that enables women to safely conceive children with an HIV-positive partner was approved for use in California by the state senate Monday on a vote of 35-1. Sen. Carole Migden, the author of the measure, Senate Bill 443, said her bill will place California on par with other states that help families with "assisted reproduction."

"All families deserve access to the tools that reproductive science has to offer," Migden said in a statement. "In this case California law needs to catch up with technology because, whether inadvertent or not, it discriminates against HIV-positive men. My legislation will ensure equal reproductive rights for all women, regardless of their partners' HIV status."

The state currently enforces a law that prohibits transferring or inseminating bodily tissue from a donor who is HIV-positive. This law--which was created to protect patients receiving organ, tissue, and sperm donations--has the unintended consequence of barring HIV-positive men from impregnating their partners.

California and Delaware are the only states that ban the medical procedure, a technology that has reportedly been in use for 10 years.

According to the University of California, San Francisco's Dr. Deborah Cohan, more than 4,000 assisted reproductive procedures involving HIV-infected men and uninfected women have occurred. With the procedure, there have been approximately 700 births without a single case of HIV transmission to child or mother. (The Advocate)