Flushing semen down the toilet is no better than flushing a human being down the toilet, one senator argued. Sarcastically.
Oklahoma legislators introduced a bill yesterday that says "the life of each human being begins at conception." But state Sen. Constance Johnson, a Democrat, decided that the bill, SB 1433, didn't go far enough to protect unborn children.
Johnson added an amendment to the bill, posted online by The Lost Ogle, that says life actually begins at ejaculation: “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.”
The Lost Ogle reported that Johnson was actually being sarcastic and making fun of the original bill. She later withdrew her amendment.
SB 1433 would give fertilzed eggs the same legal rights as human beings through all stages of conception. It is one of many controversial "personhood" bills introduced across the United States that have further driven a wedge between pro-abortion and anti-abortion advocates. Similar bills have recently been introduced in Virginia and Utah.
Medical professionals have voiced concerns about the sometimes unclear language used in personhood bills. "Embryos, including those frozen in storage, are now persons," Dr. Eli Reshef, medical director at the Bennett Fertility Institute, told Tulsa World. "Do they have to be counted in the Census? I know this might sound like stretching, but this is how vague a law like this is."
State Sen. Jim Wilson, another critic of bill, tried to add his own amendment to SB 1433 that would hold men more accountable for protecting the fetus. He proposed that the father of the unborn child should be "financially responsible for its mother's health care, housing, transportation and nourishment while she is pregnant," Tulsa World reported.
His amendment failed.
