Are you a mother? Do you know someone who is? You probably do, and that’s why you should be very concerned about Alabama’s chemical endangerment clause, which aims to protect fetuses from mothers who abuse drugs. Alabama’s law — and others like it — signify a wave of legislation aimed at granting fetuses more rights and women less, effectively treating mothers as second class citizens.
Nothing is quite so entertaining as people who don’t recognize their own hypocrisy, huh? Recently, our hero, Oklahoma State Sen. Constance Johnson (D), introduced an “Every Sperm Is Sacred” law to try to outlaw male masturbation. Legislators in OK have been concerned with banning abortion rights, including a “fetal personhood” amendment which would define a fertilized egg as a person, thereby criminalizing all abortion and IVF treatment. So, Sen. Johnson thought politicians should turn their attention to all the poor little spermies being spanked out in the shower. ”If we’re taking about protecting life, then let’s talk about life at it’s very basic beginning,” she told “The Daily Show” last night. Keep reading »
Words cannot express how much I want to thank and then high-five Ohio State Senator Nina Turner. She’s the politician who’s introduced a bill that says men looking for a prescription for Viagra would first need to get a sex therapist’s permission, a cardiac stress test, and confirmation that “the patient’s symptoms are not solely attributable to one or more psychological conditions.” The bill is, of course, meant to underscore the inherent inequality in anti-abortion bills that require women to get medically unnecessary ultrasounds and other procedures. But is she really serious?
“I’m just as serious as the men policymakers across the nation who introduced bills to regulate a woman’s reproductive health,” Turner said in the above interview with MSNBC. She continued, tongue placed firmly in cheek, “For far too long elected officials, especially women … have abdicated our responsibility to show men [as] much love in the reproductive health arena as they have shown us over the years. So my Senate bill 307 is all about the love and making sure we look out for men’s sexual health.” Keep reading »
Wilmington City Councilwoman Loretta Walsh was fed up with the recent spate of fetal personhood bills, which aim to declare that a woman’s fertilized egg is somehow the same as a “person.” So she decided to challenge those bills by introducing one of her own — a resolution to recognize the sacred life present in each sperm. Walsh drafted a resolution aimed at making it illegal for men to waste sperm. According to the language of the resolution:
[E]ach ‘egg person’ and each ‘sperm person’ should be deemed equal in the eyes of the government and be subject to the same laws and regulations as any other dependent minor and be protected against abuse, neglect or abandonment by the parent or guardian.
On Tuesday, nearly 1000 people gathered in Oklahoma City to protest the state’s fetal personhood amendment, which seeks to legally declare that life begins at conception and would thus render abortion illegal. Among the protestors was this awesome lady, Senator Judy Eason McIntyre, whose [UPDATE] who borrowed this bawdy sign from a fellow protestor. It basically sums up my feelings on the anti-choice/anti-women legislation currently being debated around the country. [Tulsa World]
Virginia politicians advanced two extreme and extremely disturbing anti-abortion bills yesterday — Valentine’s Day, for God’s sake! One is a so-called “fetal personhood” amendment, which would criminalize all abortions by declaring that a fertilized egg is a person.
The state’s Republican-controlled House of Delegates overwhelmingly passed the “fetal personhood” bill, which now heads to the state Senate. If the bill passes the state Senate and is signed into law by Republican Governor Bob McDonnell, it would be the most sweeping criminalization of abortion in the United States. Keep reading »
Following in the footsteps of Janet Howell, the Virginia state senator who added a rectal exam amendment to a bill that required women to get an ultrasound before having an abortion, Oklahoma Senator Constance Johnson found a clever way to protest the controversial “fetal personhood laws” cropping up in conservative states. Senate Bill 1433 says “the unborn child at every stage of development (has) all the rights, privileges, and immunities available to other persons, citizens, and residents of this state,” which would legally make it damn near impossible for a woman to get an abortion. Johnson’s “Every Sperm Is Sacred” amendment, which she voluntarily withdrew but not before emphasizing that her point was to draw attention to the sexism inherrant in these “fetal personhood laws,” would have added language stating “any action in which a man ejaculates or otherwise deposits semen anywhere but in a woman’s vagina shall be interpreted and construed as an action against an unborn child.” Because every sperm that dies in a dude’s balled up dirty sock technically could have been a baby.
Constance Johnson, hero of the week. [Care2.com]
That’s a relief.
Mississippi voters failed to pass an anti-abortion “fetal personhood” amendment, which would have defined the beginning of life at conception and therefore criminalized all abortions — including those resulting from rape or incest. Initiative 26, as the ballot measure was known as, also would have criminalized IVF treatments and some forms of birth control because they both involve fertilized eggs. If it had passed, MS would have had the strictest restrictions against abortion in the country. Keep reading »
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