【雅思课外精读】生育平等权：同性恋家庭如何才能拥有一个孩子？（上）

　　【雅思课外精读】生育平等权：同性恋家庭如何才能拥有一个孩子？（上），最近的外刊阅读都是热门话题，倡导人权平等，各位雅思同学可以多多阅读参考，积累素材，提升词汇量！环球教育-雅思美文推荐栏目也会为大家更新更多的雅思课外精读材料，供大家参考！

　　*注：本文摘自7月22日《纽约时报》

　　The Fight for Fertility Equality

　　争取生育平等

　　1. While plenty of New Yorkers have formed families by gestational surrogacy, they almost certainly worked with carriers living elsewhere. Because until early April, paying a surrogate to carry a pregnancy was illegal in New York state.

　　很多纽约人通过代孕有了孩子，但是他们找的代孕母亲一般都是国外的，因为直到今年四月初，花钱请代孕在纽约都是违法的。

　　2. The change to the law, which happened quietly in the midst of the state’s effort to contain the coronavirus, capped a decade-long legislative battle and has laid the groundwork for a broader movement in pursuit of what some activists have termed “fertility equality.”

　　与此相关的法律修改是在纽约努力抗击新冠疫情的过程中悄然发生的，这为此前长达十年的立法斗争画上了句号，也为一些活动人士所称的追求“生育平等”的更广泛运动奠定了基础。

　　3. Still in its infancy, this movement envisions a future when the ability to create a family is no longer determined by one’s wealth, sexuality, gender or biology.

　　“生育平等”运动目前还在起步阶段，它预设了这样一个未来：能否生育孩子不再由财富、性能力、性别或其他生理因素决定。

图片来源网络

　　4. “This is about society extending equality to its final and logical conclusion,” said Ron Poole-Dayan, the founder and executive directorof Men Having Babies, a New York nonprofit that helps gay men become fathers through surrogacy. “True equality doesn’t stop at marriage. It recognizes the barriers L.G.B.T.s face in forming families and proposes solutions to overcome these obstacles.”

　　纽约非营利组织男人生孩子（Men Having Babies）创始人和执行董事罗恩·普尔-达扬说，“这是社会平等最后会如何发展的合理结论。真正的平等在婚姻方面也应该实现。“生育平等”运动看到了LGBT群体在建立家庭方面面临的障碍并就此提出了方案。”

　　5. The movement is led mostly by L.B.G.T.Q. people, but its potential to shift how fertility coverage is paid for could have an impact on straight couples who rely on surrogates too.

　　“生育平等”运动主要是由LGBT人士领导的，但是该运动可能会推动生育保险改革，这对依赖代孕的异性恋夫妻也会产生深远影响。

　　6. Mr. Poole-Dayan and others believe infertility should not be defined as a physical condition but a social one. They argue that people — gay, straight, single, married, male, female — are not infertile because their bodies refuse to cooperate with baby making. Rather, their specific life circumstances, like being a man with a same-sex partner, have rendered them unable to conceive or carry a child to term without medical intervention. A category of “social infertility” would provide those biologically unable to form families with the legal and medical mechanisms to do so.

　　普尔·达扬和其他一些人认为，不孕症不仅仅只是指身体上的不能生育，还应该涉及到一些社会的因素.他们认为，人们(包括同性恋、异性恋、单身、已婚、男性、女性)之所以不能生育，并不仅仅是身体的原因。他们特殊的生活环境使得他们在没有医疗干预的情况下无法怀孕或实现足月分娩，比如那些有同性伴侣的男性。提出“社会性不育”这样的分类将为那些在生理上无法组建家庭的人提供建立家庭的法律和医疗机制。

　　7. “We have this idea that infertility is about failing to become pregnant through intercourse, but this is a very hetero-centric viewpoint,” said Catherine Sakimura, the deputy director and family law director of the National Center for Lesbian Rights. “We must shift our thinking so that the need for assisted reproductive technologies is not a condition, but simply a fact.”

　　国家女同性恋权利中心的副主任兼家庭法主任Catherine Sakimura说:“我们之前将不孕定义为无法通过性交怀孕，但是这是一种以异性恋为中心的定义。我们必须改变我们的思维，让辅助生殖需求不再只是疾病，而是一个事实。”

　　8. Fertility equality activists are asking, at a minimum, for insurance companies to cover reproductive procedures like sperm retrieval, egg donation and embryo creation for allprospective parents, including gay couples who use surrogates. Ideally, activists would also like to see insurance cover embryo transfers and surrogacy fees. This would include gay men who would transfer benefits directly to their surrogate.

　　生育平等活动人士要求保险公司至少为所有准父母(包括使用代孕的同性恋夫妇)提供精子提取、卵子捐赠和胚胎创造等生殖程序的保险。理想情况下，活动家们还希望保险能够包括胚胎移植和代孕费用。这将包括男同性恋者，他们可以直接将保险金给他们请的代孕母亲。

　　9. In Delaware and New Hampshire there is limited insurance coverage for these services, but the requirements make it nearly impossible for L.G.B.T.Q. people to qualify for it. The goal of the movement is coverage for all people in the United States.

　　特拉华州和新罕布什尔州有提供有限的代孕保险，但是其申请要求使得LGBT人群几乎不可能获得资格。“生育平等”运动的目标是将相关服务保险扩展到覆盖所有美国人。

　　10. “This entire process falls far outside the way insurance companies traditionally think about health coverage,” said Ms. Sakimura, who helped draft legislation in 2013 to ensure existing fertility services are equally accessible for L.G.B.T.Q. people in California. “They cover a person and their body, but surrogacy requires companies to shift that coverage onto someone else’s body.”

　　2013年，Sakimura女士曾帮助起草法律，以确保LGBT群体能够获得加州现有生育服务。她说，“整个过程远远和保险公司对健康保险的传统认知完全不一样。传统健康保险涉及的是一个人及其身体，而代孕保险则要求保险公司将保险服务转移到其他人的身体上。”

　　11. Davina Fankhauser, the co-founder and president of Fertility Within Reach, a nonprofit, said, “There is precedent for medical procedures to be performed on a non-covered person by another subscriber’s insurance on a limited basis. Most commonly, we see this practice with living organ donation.”

　　非营利组织Fertility Within Reach的联合创始人兼总裁Davina Fankhauser说，“在有限制的基础上，没有健康保险的人使用别人的健康保险是有先例的，活体器官捐赠就是很常见的例子。”

　　12. Miguel Aguilera is a 36-year-old Marine Corps captain who served in Afghanistan and Iraq. Because of injuries sustained in combat, Captain Aguilera, who is gay, qualifies for fertility services, like in vitro fertilization, from the U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs.

　　米格尔·阿奎莱拉是一名36岁的海军陆战队上尉，曾在阿富汗和伊拉克服役。由于在战斗中受伤，身为同性恋的阿奎莱拉上尉有资格获得美国退伍军人事务部提供的生育服务，包括体外受精。

　　13. In 2018 Captain Aguilera, who is stationed at a Marine Corps base in Jacksonville, N.C., began thinking about fatherhood and taking advantage of his benefits. But “the V.A. told me they only offer these procedures to male soldiers who are married to women,” he said, referring to services like testing, hormone therapy and artificial insemination, and that surrogacy was not a covered benefit.

　　2018年，驻扎在北卡罗来纳州杰克逊维尔海军陆战队基地的阿奎莱拉上尉想要充分利用他的福利，成为一名父亲。 “但退伍军人事务部告诉我，他们只向与女性结婚的男性士兵提供这些服务，”他说。退伍军人事务部称，生育服务包括的是检测、激素治疗和人工授精等服务，代孕服务并不包括在内。

　　14. The policy dictated that the couple must not only be married, but also that one partner “must have an intact uterus and one functioning ovary,” while the other “must be able to produce sperm.”

　　这项政策规定，夫妻双方必须结婚，而且一方“必须拥有完整的子宫和功能健全的卵巢”，而另一方“必须能够提供精子”。

　　15. “But what about gay men?” Captain Aguilera said. “Why aren’t we on equal footing? The whole process made me feel like giving up my dream of becoming a parent.”

　　阿奎莱拉说，“那男同性恋呢?为什么我们不是平等的?整个过程让我觉得我好像要放弃我成为父亲的梦想了。”