A Texas politician has introduced a bill that would fine men in the state $100 for pleasuring themselves.
The “Man’s Right To Know” bill or HB No. 4260, filed by Jessica Farrar (D-Houston), would make masturbation, or “emissions outside of a woman’s vagina or created outside of a health or medical facility,” an “act against an unborn child and failing to preserve the sanctity of life.”
The money collected in fines would go to a fund set up by the Department of Family and Protective Services.
The bill also would require doctors to administer a digital rectal exam and an MRI before administering a vasectomy, a colonoscopy or prescribing Viagra to men, and would allow doctors to refuse such procedures and medicines on the grounds of the doctor’s religious beliefs.
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The bill does not contain any language as to how the law would be enforced if it were to pass.
According to Farrar, her bill is meant to open a conversation about women’s health issues.
"A lot of people find the bill funny,” Farrar told the San Antonio News Express. “What's not funny are the obstacles that Texas women face every day, that were placed there by legislatures making it very difficult for them to access healthcare."
Many of the features of Farrar’s bill mirror what women in Texas must go through in order to obtain an abortion or acquire birth control. The portion of the bill that requires men to receive a rectal exam and an MRI is meant to parody a law that requires women in Texas to receive a trans-vaginal ultrasound when seeking an abortion.
She also named her bill after a pamphlet called “Woman’s Right To Know,” a document doctors are required to read to women before receiving an abortion.
"If the state's going to step into the arena of women's healthcare, let’s look to the best practices of the doctors, not bad science, not political agendas and not votes in a Republican primary," Farrar told the News Express.
Alex Hider is a writer for the E.W. Scripps National Desk. Follow him on Twitter @alexhider.
