As expected, the Constitutional Court recently ruled that the regulation under which single women and women in same-sex relationships are not entitled to assisted reproduction procedures is unconstitutional. The National Assembly has one year to remedy the inconsistency, and until then, the provisions in question continue to apply. The usual left-wing constellation of the Constitutional Court has thus overturned the will of the Slovenian people, who are in no way in favour of children growing up without a mother and father by default.
As is clear from the decision, the Constitutional Court considers that the contested provisions are incompatible with the right of partners in same-sex marriages and civil unions and single women to non-discriminatory treatment under Article 14(1) in conjunction with Article 55 of the Constitution. According to the Constitutional Court, the law prohibits them from accessing assisted reproduction procedures solely on the basis of the personal circumstances of their sexual orientation and marital status. The Freedom Movement (Gibanje Svoboda) is already using the decision as a virtue-signalling opportunity for its far-left voters, announcing that they will immediately set about amending the legislation.
The will of the people
An amendment to the Act on Infertility Treatment and Assisted Reproduction Procedures, which would have made single women eligible for assisted reproductive technology, was adopted by the National Assembly in April 2001 and rejected by voters in a legislative referendum in June of that same year.
Slovenian voters have repeatedly shown their aversion to homosexual couples raising children, believing that a child needs both a father and a mother (important studies in the field of developmental psychology confirm this). They have twice rejected both assisted reproductive technology and adoption of children by homosexual couples in referendums.
Primc: Legalising child trafficking
Aleš Primc, one of the prominent activists who helped defeat the Cerar government’s law on child adoption by homosexuals in the referendum, also spoke out in light of the recent ruling: “Tragic. The Constitutional Court demands the legalisation of child trafficking; it has ruled that a child does not need a father, has no right to a father, and has no right to a father’s upbringing and lineage… Five constitutional court judges overturned the decision of 410,856 people (72.36 percent) in a referendum in 2001.”
MEP Branko Grims was even harsher in his response, writing: “People just need to understand that the ultra-leftist majority of the Constitutional Court is the result of wrong electoral decisions, where a large part of the electorate voted left; or rather, settled again and again for the “new face of the centre” – which was even further left. So, vote always right and only right! For Slovenia!”
The experts also disagree with the decision. Doctor Federico Potočnik wrote a harsh critique, saying: “The un-constitutional court. The Constitution says that “The State shall protect the family […] and create safe conditions for it.” The USA, with a clear left-wing agenda, treats children as a fashion accessory. They abuse the disease of infertility so that children can be ordered just like in a shop. Crazy.”
Just after the defeat of the referendum on the Family Code (which also legalised the adoption of children by homosexuals), the then-MP of the ruling Modern Centre Party (Stranka modernega centra – SMC), Jasna Murgel, made it clear that “in a few years, we will change the constitutional court judges,” a claim that was even criticised at the time by the “left-wing” lawyer Matevž Krivic. In the end, they did “change the constitutional court judges,” and the far left sensed an opportunity to weigh the decision again in the Constitutional Court. And they did.
The application for a constitutionality review that sought to bury the will of the people
In October 2020, a group of MPs, with Matej T. Vatovec (the Left party – Levica) as the first signatory, submitted a request to the Constitutional Court to review the constitutionality of the Act, and a year later, equality advocate Miha Lobnik did the same. The Constitutional Court considered the two requests together and, four years later, ruled that the regulation under which single women and women in same-sex marriages or civil unions are not entitled to assisted reproductive technology solutions is unconstitutional.
The Constitutional Court adopted this decision by five votes to one. The five in question are, of course, well-known activist soldiers of the left: Matej Accetto, Rok Čeferin, Rajko Knez, Špelca Mežnar and Katja Šugman Stubbs voted in favour, and Marko Šorli voted against. Judges Mežnar, Šugman Stubbs, Accetto and Knez delivered separate opinions in the affirmative, while Šorli delivered a dissenting opinion in part.
What does the Constitutional Court think?
The Constitutional Court claims that it had to take a stand on the question of whether the factual situations compared by the petitioners (single women and women in same-sex couples, on the one hand, and women in heterosexual couples, on the other hand) are substantially identical. This is a fundamentally flawed definition of the primary issue, since it is not only the rights of the parents that are at stake, but also the rights of the child itself.
The Court has created a dangerous postulate, which has no scientific support, that “same-sex families are comparable to heterosexual families in their essential characteristics and in terms of the protection of the best interests of the child. Single-parent families with children are comparable to two-parent families.”
This is a postulate without evidence, but there is ample empirical research to show that both single-parent families are not equivalent to two-parent families (when it comes to measurement components such as children’s performance) and so-called same-sex families are not comparable to heterosexual families (it is difficult to use the woke word “different-sex,” as our “woke” constitutional court does).
Texas sociologist Mark Regnerus is the only one who has published a study that follows the development of children raised by homosexual and heterosexual parents. The study found that children raised by homosexual parents have more mental health and adjustment problems. But it is clear why this is one of the few studies of its kind. After the study was published, Professor Regnerus at the University of Texas was even investigated for ‘inappropriate behaviour’ after pressure from gay rights activists – in the end, no evidence was found of any such thing, and such pressure shows how dangerous it is in today’s world to tell the truth about a child needing a father and a mother. Such empirical studies prevent various activist lawyers at the top from shaping our destiny in the same way as our Constitutional Court, which prima facie concludes that same-sex families are qualitatively equivalent to traditional ones.
In two steps, therefore, the court has completely disregarded the right of newborn children to the highest possible quality of upbringing within the family: first by focusing exclusively on the rights of parents, and then by the unreal postulate that there is no difference between growing up in same-sex and traditional families.
I. K.
