Mississippi and Ohio lawmakers have a message for their Republican colleagues: If you're going to regulate reproduction, let’s regulate all reproduction.
Mississippi state Sen. Bradford Blackmon and Ohio state Rep. Anita Somani have introduced bills aimed at forcing an uncomfortable conversation about reproductive rights — this time with men as the focus. Blackmon’s Contraception Begins at Erection Act proposes that men should be fined if they “discharge genetic material” without the intent to conceive. Meanwhile, Somani’s Conception Begins at Erection Act goes further, making it a felony with fines up to $10,000.
Sound ridiculous? Good. That’s the point.
Both lawmakers are fully aware their bills won’t pass, but they aren’t trying to win votes — they’re trying to expose hypocrisy.
“If you think it’s absurd to regulate men, then you should think it’s equally absurd to regulate women,” Somani told News 5 Cleveland.
Blackmon, speaking to NBC News, anticipated the backlash but remained unfazed.
“People can get up in arms and call it absurd, but I can’t say that bothers me,” he said.
It’s a strategy that speaks to the frustration of reproductive rights advocates. Since the fall of Roe v. Wade, lawmakers in red states have introduced increasingly extreme abortion bans — often with no exceptions for rape, incest, or even life-threatening conditions. At the same time, men’s reproductive choices remain entirely unregulated.
According to KFF, a nonprofit specializing in health policy research, 12 states have enacted total or near-total abortion bans, while six others prohibit the procedure between six and 12 weeks of pregnancy.
And that’s the absurdity Blackmon and Somani are pushing into the spotlight. If women are forced into motherhood, why shouldn’t men be legally compelled into fatherhood? If a woman can be prosecuted for ending a pregnancy, why shouldn’t a man be held legally responsible for causing one?
The GOP response has been predictable: outrage, eye rolls, dismissals of the bills as unserious. But that’s part of the hypocrisy, too.
If they think these bills are absurd, maybe they should take a closer look at the ones they’re actually passing.
