House Committee Approves Bill To Ban Eyeball Tattooing

A House panel Monday unanimously approved legislation its author calls “the grossest bill of the session.” The measure would ban the practice of eyeball tattooing.

Gene Helveston is a longtime Indiana ophthalmologist. He supports the bill to ban the practice of tattooing an eyeball – though he acknowledges he doesn’t know of anyone who does it or has had it done.

“But I think that’s because the proposition is so preposterous that nobody who I keep company with would do such a thing,” Helveston says.

Bill author Sen. John Ruckelshaus (R-Indianapolis) says the same – he doesn’t know of anyone in the state in the eyeball tattoo business. He says his bill makes sure that doesn’t change.

“It makes this a civil fine. It bans it and only those ophthalmologists, those trained physicians can work on an eye,” Ruckelshaus says.

The bill’s civil fine would be up to $10,000 per incident.