http://www.huffingtonpost.com/martha-burk/go-for-it-gop-sperm-right_b_1823325.html
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.I hope this blog reaches the GOP platform committee in time: you're being way-y-y too shy with your planks. A Human Life Amendment to the Constitution outlawing all abortions and granting embryos personhood through the 14th Amendment are good starts. Now, why not go all the way? Your party has already campaigned to eliminate contraception for women, but fertilized eggs shouldn't be the only ones to benefit from anti-contraception policies.Simply put, sperm deserve equal personhood too (they're potential life), and men deserve the same life-affirming treatment vis-a-vis contraception that women are getting. The Bible says, "be fruitful and multiply; populate the earth abundantly" -- and the GOP can help.

The facts of men's fertility are that they can cause hundreds (even thousands in the case of certain athletes who brag about their abilities) more pregnancies than women can. In the most extreme case on both sides, consider a woman who becomes pregnant and gives birth every year of her fertile life. It is theoretically possible for her to have 35 children in her lifetime. In the same period, if a man had unprotected intercourse just once per week he could father 1,820 children. Add his increased years of fertility, and his potential for physical domination over women (aka "legitimate rape"), and we see that the problem of populating the earth is largely one of aiding male fertility -- meaning free the sperm from the contraceptives that kill them and the condoms that smother them.

So how do we facilitate sperm rights? By outlawing condoms beginning at puberty, and requiring DNA samples to go into a national DNA registry at the same time. That way, each fertilized egg could exercise its constitutional right to know its paternity, and the full-term babies that result would be entitled to support until they reach 21, whether or not the father is married to the mother. Use of condoms for medical reasons unrelated to fertility would have to be approved by a panel of three doctors, and with the permission of his designated female partner. For men under 18, a judge's permission would be needed.

Control of men's fertility would not be hard to enforce. We could use a combination of punishments for those who obtained condoms illegally (and for pharmacies that sold them without proper authorization). The men could be required to adopt one orphan child per infraction and rear it to adulthood. The pharmacists could lose their licenses, or go to prison if they habitually aided men under the table by selling condoms or spermicides for their partners. With DNA fingerprinting the method is foolproof, especially if drug stores and convenience stores reported any man who tried to buy birth control unlawfully.

Protecting sperm rights would benefit society, and wouldn't really harm men.

Understand -- a man's right to control his own body and life choices would not be infringed. Men could still have sex. They would merely be asked to accept a few tiny, ever-so-reasonable restrictions.

C'mon GOP. You've got another few days to do the right thing -- now beef up that platform!




By:



Martha BurkMoney Editor, Ms. magazine; director, Corporate Accountability Project, National Council of Women's Organizations.

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