An Alabama lawmaker has introduced a bill that would force men to get vasectomies, at their own expense, once they turn 50 or have three children. HB238 was written by State Rep. Rolanda Hollis as a direct response to the abortion law passed last year. Why? To punish men. “The vasectomy bill is… to neutralize the abortion ban bill…. It always takes two to tango,” Hollis said in an interview with AL.com. “We can’t put all the responsibility on women. Men need to be responsible also.”
This isn’t the first time a lawmaker has introduced a tone-deaf bill supposedly meant to restrict men’s “reproductive rights.”
The bill itself is clearly meant to make a statement, and is wrong on multiple levels. So what’s the main issue that lawmakers always seem to miss with this and similar legislation? It’s this:
A vasectomy is in no way the same as an abortion, because a vasectomy does not kill an already-conceived human being.
The choice to be sterilized does not involve taking the life of an already-conceived human being. A sperm cell, or an unfertilized egg, is not the same thing as a preborn child. Whether that child is a zygote, an embryo, a fetus, a newborn, or a toddler, he is — at all stages — a living human being.
No one has banned tubal ligations or birth control; a law along those lines would be closer to a female equivalent of the proposed bill. And no woman is forced to be sterilized against her will (although, thanks to the eugenic philosophy that birthed Planned Parenthood, women have been forcibly sterilized in the past).
READ: Indigenous women in Canada say they were sterilized without their consent
In addition, considering that China has been criticized in recent years for its human rights abuses, including forced abortions and forcible sterilizations of those with “too many” children, Hollis’ legislation is frightening. Forced sterilization is still a horrific reality for other vulnerable populations as well, including inmates in the United States, deaf people in Japan, and people with disabilities in Europe.
Hollis may think this is a good way to get attention for her pro-abortion agenda, but turning forced sterilization into a joke — and totally ignoring the fact that abortion, unlike birth control or sterilization, deliberately ends the life of a human being in the womb — is no laughing matter.
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