This week, Democrat state senator Bradford Blackmon of Mississippi submitted a controversial law that would prohibit males from having intercourse without the “intent to fertilize an embryo.”
The “Contraception Begins at Erection Act,” as the bill is called, would make it illegal for anybody to release genetic material unless they intend to fertilize an embryo.
Additionally, the bill specifies exemptions for sperm donation and the use of birth control to avoid conception.
This daring and contentious plan aims to replicate legislative patterns observed in numerous states that have lately enacted legislation limiting access to contraception and abortion, especially after the Supreme Court overturned Roe v. Wade in 2022.
The bill, which was introduced on Monday, imposes significant penalty for infractions. Individuals who release genetic material without intending to fertilize an embryo would be subject to fines of $1,000 for the first crime, $5,000 for the second, and $10,000 for any further offenses, according to the proposal.
The bill is unlikely to garner support in Mississippi’s Republican-controlled legislature, but it might become law if Republican Governor Tate Reeves signs it into law. If passed, the law would go into force in July.
The bill was introduced in response to the growing number of state legislative measures that restrict women’s reproductive rights, especially in the areas of access to abortion and contraception, according to a press release from Blackmon, a first-term senator from a district north of Jackson, Mississippi.
“All across the country, especially here in Mississippi, the vast majority of bills relating to contraception and/or abortion focus on the woman’s role when men are fifty percent of the equation,” he wrote. “This bill highlights that fact and brings the man’s role into the conversation. People can get up in arms and call it absurd but I can’t say that bothers me.”
Following the Supreme Court’s ruling to abolish the constitutional right to an abortion and leave such decisions up to the individual states, Blackmon’s remark emphasized the escalating legislative initiatives to impose limits.
Mississippi is currently one of 12 states with either complete or nearly complete abortion prohibitions. Since the verdict, a number of Republican-led states have introduced and passed strict legislation prohibiting or severely restricting access to abortion.
States like Mississippi have witnessed an increase in attempts to restrict women’s access to contraception in addition to efforts to limit access to abortion.
By mid-2024, eight states had either passed or planned limits on access to contraception, according to the Guttmacher Institute. This has raised serious questions about the future of reproductive health rights in many U.S. regions.
Despite opposition from proponents of reproductive rights, Mississippi lawmakers are pushing for more limitations, placing the state at the center of these discussions.
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Even though Blackmon’s initiative is unlikely to pass, its introduction represents a symbolic protest against the swelling wave of anti-abortion and anti-contraception legislation that has spread throughout the nation’s conservative states.
It highlights how divisive the political environment is around reproductive rights and how, in the wake of the Supreme Court’s historic ruling, states are increasingly taking matters into their own hands.
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