The Texas legislature meets biennially, which means two things in 2017: 1) The state congress is currently in session, and 2) Texans are currently facing attacks on their reproductive rights.
Over the past decade, the latter has become as inevitable as the legislature convening every other odd-numbered year. As state-level targeted regulation of abortion providers (known as TRAP laws) have taken hold nationwide, Texas lawmakers have been the vanguard of crafting ever more restrictive measures meant to curtail abortion access (some of which the Supreme Court struck down in 2016). One state lawmaker has finally reached her limit with the routine assault on reproductive health—so she’s come up with a measure even more original than her colleagues’ creative attempts to wrestle control of women’s bodies.
On Friday, state Rep. Jessica Farrar, a Democrat from Houston, introduced HB 4260, a bill that would fine men $100 each time they masturbate, and would require doctors to provide male patients seeking an elective vasectomy, Viagra prescription, or colonoscopy with a booklet detailing the benefits and concerns of those procedures.
The measure would also grant physicians the right “to invoke their personal, moralistic, or religious beliefs” should they wish not to perform elective vasectomies or prescribe erectile dysfunction medication. It would, however, promote full abstinence from sexual relations or “occasional masturbatory emissions” inside health care facilities—all in the name of ensuring men’s health.
Farrar has named the bill the “Man’s Right to Know Act.” Can you guess where she got the idea for the name?
The representative, a long-standing proponent of abortion access and reproductive justice, told The Texas Tribune her intent is not for the satirical bill to become law. Rather, Farrar hopes to force even the slightest recognition among other representatives of the inequity in requiring “unnecessary” and “invasive” procedures for Texas women.
“What I would like to see is this make people stop and think,” Farrar said. “Maybe my colleagues aren’t capable of that, but the people who voted for them, or the people that didn’t vote at all, I hope that it changes their mind and helps them to decide what the priorities are.”
The measure has roots in reality: Farrar’s bill proposes creating a booklet to be called “A Man’s Right to Know,” which would be distributed by the Texas Department of State Health Services. The rules for distributing the pamphlet, according to the measure, should “exactly follow the rules and procedures of the informational booklet entitled ‘A Woman’s Right to Know’ ”—which is a real thing that already exists in Texas (even though lawmakers totally aren’t trying to interfere with women’s reproductive autonomy or anything).
