Mississippi Senator files ‘Contraception Begins at Erection Act’ to ‘bring men into the conversation’
The proposed Mississippi contraception bill carries a fine of up to $10,000. (Rory Doyle / AFP) (Photo by RORY DOYLE/AFP via Getty Images)
A Mississippi Senator has filed a “Contraception Begins at Erection Act” in a bid to “bring men into the conversation” around reproductive rights.
After Trump took office this week, he stated that there are “only two sexes” and vowed to end “the government policy of trying to socially engineer race and gender into every aspect of public and private life”. A US government website on reproductive rights also went dark during the first moments of his second term.
In a bid to highlight men’s responsibility when it comes to family planning, Mississippi Sen. Bradford Blackmon, a Democrat, has now introduced a new bill. Bill SB2319 would appear to ban men and people who produce sperm from engaging in unprotected sexual acts if they have no “intent to fertilise an embryo”.
The bill would make it unlawful for “a person to discharge genetic material without the intent to fertilize an embryo”. However, it includes exceptions for sperm donation and using contraception to prevent pregnancy.
The bill, which was introduced on Monday (20 January), would charge a fine of $1,000 for a first offence, $5,000 for a second offence, and $10,000 for subsequent offences.
NBC News reports that the proposed bill is “unlikely” to pass the Legislature in the state, which is Republican-led but would go into effect in July this year if signed into law by Gov. Tate Reeves, who is part of the Republican party.
Blackmon told WLBT: “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 per cent of the equation.
“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.”
Since the overturn of Roe v. Wade, 14 US states have enacted a near-total ban on abortion, including Mississippi. A further four states, Florida, Georgia, Iowa and South Carolina, have banned abortion past six weeks of pregnancy, as per The Guardian. For context, one in three people discover they are pregnant past six weeks’ gestation, according to ANSIRH.
For abortion support in the US, visit Planned Parenthood here. For abortion support in the UK and Northern Ireland, visit the NHS website here. For abortion support in Ireland, which has been lawful since March 2020, visit HSE here.
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