Oklahoma Dem: Life Begins At Ejaculation

Finally a lawmaker offers the appropriate response to the relentless crusade by Personhood USA to declare fertilized eggs legally equivalent to adults.

Oklahoma state Senator Constance Johnson introduced an amendment to Senate Bill 1433. The bill seeks to define human life as beginning at the moment of conception, before it is even implanted into the womb. Like all other personhood measures, this one would afford that homeless cluster of cells full and equal rights under the law. In the words of SB 1433 “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.”

Johnson’s response was to offer the “Every Sperm Is Sacred” amendment which would have added the following language:

However, 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.

Finally! Someone has the courage to introduce language that is just honest about the outright contempt for women driving Republican politics these days.

Johnson later voluntarily withdrew her amendment, but not without letting colleagues know it was the sexism behind the push for personhood that motivated the amendment.

And as if to prove Johnson’s point on the misogyny driving personhood bills, another pro-choice legislator Jim Wilson (D) tried to add an amendment to the bill that would require fathers be held financially responsible for the woman’s health care, housing, transportation, and nourishment while she was pregnant. It seems only fair. After all, the state is coercing her pregnancy.

Wilson’s amendment requiring fathers financially support the women they impregnated failed.

Mississippi Plans To Push Personhood Through Legislature After Voters Say No

Photo from Wikimedia Commons

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Past Member .

12:21AM PDT on Apr 1, 2012

Every sperm is sacred! Every sperm is great! For any sperm that's wasted, God gets quite irate!

send a green star

Richard B.

5:54PM PST on Mar 9, 2012

A new type of umbilical cord? Instead of being attached at the belly, to be attached at the penis?

Myron S.

3:40PM PST on Mar 9, 2012

Richard B.: I like the collecting device. It even takes care of involuntary nocturnal emissions.
Let no seed go unsown!

3:11PM PST on Mar 9, 2012

Lisa H.

2:20PM PST on Mar 9, 2012

They are all on crack, that has to be it. Or the men are so backed up with all those little lives that it is making them insane. Or well could be both. All this is beyond ridiculous to the point of sending these people for a psych eval for thoughts of grandeur

dan o.

11:09AM PST on Mar 9, 2012

While Jim Wilson's bill sounds like a good idea, I believe it would fail in the courts as men have no legal standing in the decision to bear a child.

11:00AM PST on Mar 9, 2012

Sperm is sperm. Ovum is ovum. The penetration of a live ovum by a live sperm forms a unique, separate, human being whose life is worthy of protection. Got it?

Carole A K.

10:46AM PST on Mar 9, 2012

I can't believe some of the people writing in here didn't realize that Senator Johnson's amendment was meant to be satirical. She's trying to show them the absurdity of their personhood laws. I don't know if the problem is one of comprehension or mental ability but maybe they should go back and reread before they comment on the article.

9:57AM PST on Mar 9, 2012

Well, sperm is alive.

Isn't it?

And being human sperm, it's a human life.

Right?