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| Illinois General Assembly. Photo: Chris Sweda | WGN Radio. |
A bill recently entered into the Illinois State House of Representatives would deny birth certificates to the children of single mothers. HB6064 says that, if there is no father present to sign a birth certificate, someone else has to step in who can provide financial support for the child and sign the document.
If the mother refuses to name the father, then a DNA test must be performed to determine who he is. And failing all of this, no birth certificate will be issued.
The bill would essentially render these children non-existent. A child without a birth certificate could not prove they were born in the United States, and would effectively not be a citizen.
They wouldn’t qualify for Social Security. They could be barred from enrolling in school, couldn’t receive any financial aid, and couldn’t get a passport or driver’s license.
This bill would impact those children through their entire life. And their mother wouldn’t be able to receive any state aid, if she needed it, to help raise said child.
The bill serves no purpose other than punishing single mothers for what some Republicans see as the ultimate crime: being a woman who doesn’t depend on upon a man for support.
It’s same thinking that resulted in young girls being institutionalized in the 1950s for wanting to raise a child without a father, or having those children taken away from them and given up for adoption.
It’s the 21st Century, we decided some time ago that being the child of a single mother wasn’t the worst possible fate to ever befall someone, so where is this bill coming from?
Statements from the Representatives who introduced the bill have not been issued to clarify things, possibly because they’re scrambling to figure out how to justify something so flagrantly misogynistic.
The bill will likely, hopefully, fail to make it to a vote, much less pass, but the fact that it was introduced at all epitomizes how brazen conservatives have become.
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