| schema:text
| - Part of Evers' 2025-27 budget bill would replace the word "mother" with "inseminated person" in one state statute about artificial insemination.
However, the word "mother" would still be left intact in many state laws, including those Evers proposed changes to.
The proposed change is part of a larger effort to use gender-neutral terminology in state statutes so the law will recognize same-sex marriages and confer the same "rights and responsibilities" heterosexual married couples already receive.
In late February 2025, social media users began claiming that Wisconsin Gov. Tony Evers, a Democrat, wanted to replace the word "mother" with "inseminated person" under state law.
The rumor spread on Facebook, X and Reddit, including through posts by Wisconsin Republicans including U.S. Rep. Tom Tiffany. Elon Musk, X's owner and an adviser to U.S. President Donald Trump, reposted a screenshot about the purported proposal on X and received more than 200,000 likes.
Hi Mom, I mean "inseminated person."
This is crazy!! https://t.co/sJlB9wAnAl— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) Feb. 25, 2025
Even Brett Favre, a former quarterback for the Green Bay Packers, weighed in on X, calling the alleged policy "nonsense."
While it is true that Evers proposed replacing "mother" with "inseminated person" in a single instance in one state law, it is not true that Evers wanted to replace "mother" with "inseminated person" in every state law. The language change is for a statute about artificial insemination and is part of a greater effort to ensure married same-sex couples receive the same legal rights as heterosexual couples. In many of Evers' suggested changes for other laws, the word "mother" was either left intact or replaced with "parent" when relevant. Thus, we rate this
"I didn't know Republicans were against IVF, but apparently they are because that is what that's about," Evers said in response to criticism about the proposed changes, referencing in vitro fertilization, a form of artificial insemination. "Moms are moms, dads are dads, and what we want is legal certainty that moms are able to get the care they need. That's it, end of story.
Evers did not respond to a request for
Using gender-neutral language in state law
Evers included the changed language in a nearly-2,000-page budget bill introduced on Feb. 18, 2025. In most states, the governor submits an annual or biennial budget proposal to fund the government either at the start or ahead of the state's legislative session, which can then be modified by other lawmakers. As states must pass a budget to function, lawmakers often add policy ideas to these bills, even if they are
Evers' 2025 budget proposal had not passed as of this writing.
The suggested switch from "inseminated person" to mother" is for Wisconsin statute 891.40, "Artificial Insemination." As of this writing, the current statute sets parameters for when the husband of a woman who is artificially inseminated is considered the "natural father" of that child —
The suggested changes, available on pages 1766 and 1767 of Evers' budget bill, make that language gender-neutral (emphasis ours):
SECTION 3106. 891.40 (1) of the statutes is renumbered 891.40 (1) (a) and amended to read:
891.40 (1) (a) If,
under the supervision of a licensed physician andwith the spouse's consentof her husband, awifeperson is inseminated artificially as provided in par. (b) with semen donated by amanperson who is nother husbandthe spouse of the person being inseminated, thehusbandspouse of themotherinseminated person at the time of the conception of the child shall be the natural father parent of a child conceived. Thehusband'sspouse's consent must be in writing and signed by him or her andhis wife. Theby the inseminated person.
A search for "inseminated person" within the legislation showed that the passage above is the only place where "mother" is replaced with "inseminated person."
In several instances in the bill, "mother" is replaced with "parent" or "birth parent," but there are also sections where "mother" is left intact if the law in question remains clear about which person it is referring to, including on Page 848, which suggests changes to state law on registering births (emphasis ours):
b. If the mother of a registrant of a birth record under this section is married
to the father of the registrantat any time from the conception to the birth of the registrant and the mother is separated or divorcedfrom the father of the registrantat the time of birth, the given name and surnamewhichthat the parent of the registrant with actual custody enters for the registrant on the birth record shall be the given name and surname filed and registered on the birth record …
Aligning state law with same-sex marriage
According to the budget document, using gender-neutral terminology in state statutes ensures the law recognizes same-sex marriages, thus "harmonizing" state statutes with a 2015 U.S. Supreme Court ruling legalizing same-sex marriage (Page 86). This "confers the same rights and responsibilities on married persons of the same sex that married persons of different sexes have under current law."
Here is how it applies to the "artificial insemination" section of law, per the bill (Page 87):
Under current law, if a woman is artificially inseminated under the supervision of a physician with semen donated by a man who is not her husband and the husband consents in writing to the artificial insemination of his wife, the husband is the natural father of any child conceived. Under the bill, one spouse may also consent to the artificial insemination of his or her spouse and is the natural parent of the child conceived.
In other words, under Wisconsin's current parental laws for artificial insemination as of this writing, only marriage between a man and a woman is acknowledged. But by changing the law to use gender-neutral language, if two women, for example, are married to each other, and one is artificially inseminated, the other can be the legal parent of the child conceived.
Thus, it could be argued that changing "mother" to "inseminated person" allows the law to clearly state which mother it is referring to — the mother who underwent artificial insemination or the mother married to the one who gave birth.
The "artificial insemination" section is not the only state statute Evers sought to update with gender-neutral language; his budget bill "makes applicable to married persons of the same sex all provisions under current law that apply to married persons of different sexes" (Page 86). That includes "income tax, marital property, inheritance rights, divorce, child and spousal support" and more.
|
![[RDF Data]](/fct/images/sw-rdf-blue.png)
![[cxml]](/fct/images/cxml_doc.png)
![[csv]](/fct/images/csv_doc.png)
![[text]](/fct/images/ntriples_doc.png)
![[turtle]](/fct/images/n3turtle_doc.png)
![[ld+json]](/fct/images/jsonld_doc.png)
![[rdf+json]](/fct/images/json_doc.png)
![[rdf+xml]](/fct/images/xml_doc.png)
![[atom+xml]](/fct/images/atom_doc.png)
![[html]](/fct/images/html_doc.png)