Lawmakers have gone nuts.
Georgia state Rep. Dar’shun Kendrick is floating the idea that if men can legislate women’s reproductive rights, women should have a vote on what men do with their bodies.
In an email titled “Testicular ‘Bill of Rights’ Legislation” sent to fellow lawmakers with its level of importance marked “high,” Kendrick proposed a bill to “ban vasectomies,” classify sex without a condom as “aggravated assault” and require men purchasing Viagra to have their partner’s consent.
Her email is in response to the Georgia’s House of Representatives approval last week of HB 481, which would forbid abortions from being performed once a fetal heartbeat is detected. Abortion rights activists argue that often comes around the six-week point of gestation, before women first realize they’re pregnant.
If Kendrick’s proposal becomes a bill, it would require men to take paternity tests at eight weeks and to begin paying child support to the mother’s immediately, because according to conservative lawmakers, the baby is already born at that point.
The 36-year-old Democrat’s idea would also require a 24-hour cooling period for men wishing to purchase pornography or sex toys in the state of Georgia, much the same way guns are sold.
In an interview with Rolling Stone magazine, Kendrick conceded the bill won’t pass anytime soon, partially because Georgia’s 2019 legislative agenda has already passed. She also insisted she was “dead serious” about the tit-for-tat proposal.
Kendrick says HB 481 is also no laughing matter and fears that it’s an early step in the right-wing’s agenda to overturn the abortion rights women first won in 1973.
“(HB 481) is a case to test Roe v. Wade. They’re hoping that it gets up to the Court of Appeals,” she said. “The Eleventh Circuit is one of the most conservative court circuits that we have, and they’re hopeful that they will uphold part of it, and then they’ll take it all the way to the Supreme Court.”
In his two years in office, President Trump has placed two conservative Justices on the Supreme Court, including Brett Kavanaugh, whose position on women’s rights remain murky since his October inauguration.
The 54-year-old Catholic was accused of several counts of sexual misconduct — all of which he denied — during his confirmation process. He also testified during that hearing that Roe v. Wade was an “important precedent of the Supreme Court that has been reaffirmed many times over the past 45 years.”
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