Wyoming Right to Life informs and inspires

Nearly 100 of Wyoming’s finest citizens gathered last Saturday, in Riverton, to celebrate a culture of life, to connect with one another, and to learn better how to serve their neighbors. It was the first statewide conference of Wyoming Right to Life (WRTL) in more than a decade. President Marti Halverson, former state representative, organized a day of awards, discussion, and informative presentations.

First, a panel of ten lawmakers discussed last winter’s legislative session in Cheyenne. Veterans and freshmen legislators from both the house and senate, expressed profound gratitude for having the opportunity to protect human life in an elected capacity. Several noted the pivotal work of senate president, Dan Dockstader, who himself sat on the panel.

After the discussion, three panelists were singled out for their achievements on behalf of life at every stage from conception to death. Representatives Chuck Gray, Rachel Rodriguez-Williams, and Pepper Ottman all received a Platinum level award.

Gray, Pepper and Rodriguez-Williams

After lunch Jennifer Lahl, president of the Center for Bioethics and Culture (CBC) gave a spell-binding presentation on Assisted Reproductive Technology (ART). Her story began with the 1978 birth of Louise Brown, the first “test tube,” [actually, in vitro fertilization (IVF)] baby. At that time, legal precedents were set that excluded leftover embryos from the protections afforded to every child. Instead, they were subsumed under property-law. This grave injustice has never been corrected.

Today there are an estimated one million people frozen in the embryonic state. But the injustices surrounding IVF do not begin with them. Prior to that, poor women are exploited for their eggs. Lahl discussed the commodification of women in her first, award-winning documentary “Eggsploitation” (available from Amazon Prime.)

Well to do women are not lining up to donate their eggs. However, it is common for IVF clinics to recruit on university campuses and in third-world countries. These recruits are graded by I.Q., beauty, and body metrics. Thus cataloged, their eggs are painfully extracted without regard to proper health and safety concerns. They are sold on the open market to the highest bidder. Where this unethical practice has been outlawed, its victims are simply flown to countries with “friendlier” laws.

Dangling tens of thousands of dollars before relatively poor women can be a temptation too great to resist. This is especially true when the unregulated “Big Fertility” industry withholds information of the many risks. Women have suffered strokes, loss of ovaries, and breast cancer because of such exploitative practices. 

In comparison to the extremely invasive and injurious procedures necessary to harvest a woman’s eggs, getting sperm for the IVF procedure is child’s play. But even this has downsides that hardly anyone will discuss. Thus, the CBC produced a second documentary called “Anonymous Father’s Day.”

It tells the heartbreaking stories of the children of sperm “donors.” Consider the life-long injury that a person endures when a fundamental human right, the right to know one’s own father, is denied by law. While no orphan would ever vote to create another orphan, people who know their own fathers regularly vote in laws that deny the same right to those unlucky enough to be born through anonymous sperm.

As if such injustices were not enough, Big Fertility has also entices healthy young women to rent their bodies through gestational agreements. The CBC tells this story in the provocatively titled documentary: “Breeders: A subclass of women?”

Women are lured into gestational agreements with the promise of “helping others.” The pot is further sweetened by tens of thousands of dollars that may be paid out as compensation for “wear and tear” [on the body]--as Representative Zwonitzer (R-Cheyenne) indelicately put it during a committee meeting. The fact that surrogacy greatly multiplies the risk of pregnancy complications, is not mentioned. Nor are unanticipated emotional traumas ever discussed.

Rep. Dan Zwonitzer

The exploitation of women through surrogacy and egg harvesting is so horrific that most European nations, India, and even China have outlawed the practice. Feminist Gloria Steinem has partnered with the CBC to oppose these indignities, as well. 

Unfortunately for the women of Wyoming, a new law went into effect yesterday, July 1, that brings Big Fertility and its exploitative practices here. HB 73 “Birth certificates-gestational agreements” sailed through the legislature and was signed by the governor in April. Few were aware of the many hidden harms of Big Fertility before voting in favor of this legislation. 

Those who care about the women and children of Wyoming learned the great need to keep informed on reproductive ethics. Big Fertility has huge financial incentives to cut ethical corners but it has virtually no meaningful restrictions that check its ability to exploit women. Therefore, the responsibility falls to every good citizen to speak for the powerless. You can start by educating yourself at: CBC-network.org.

Also published in the Wyoming Tribune Eagle, July 2, 2021.