Minnesota’s artificial insemination statute is in need of gender neutralization. Minnesota Statute Section 257.56 provides that “if…a wife is inseminated artificially with semen donated by a man not her husband, the husband is treated in law as if he were the biological father of a child thereby conceived.”
In the current age of marriage equality, this should read, “if…a woman is inseminated artificially with semen donated by a man not her spouse, the woman’s spouse is treated in law as if the spouse were the parent of the child thereby conceived.”
In the absence of gender-neutral language, if the spouse of the woman who is artificially inseminated is also a woman, she is required to adopt the child. As related in a Pioneer Press article authored by Dave Orrick, this creates unnecessary legal burdens that do not serve any useful purposes.
Here’s hoping that the Minnesota legislature remedies this problem so that other couples are not confronted with the same useless barriers.