After recent attacks on women’s health and attempts to enact barriers between the general public and various birth control methods, the City Council from Wilmington, Delaware is fighting back.
Birth control on the whole is a preventative measure; aside from condoms and abstention, the most frequently used birth controls are hormonal supplements which prevent a woman from ovulating. To clarify, birth control pills and vaginal rings are not abortion methods, nor can they function as such, and will not terminate existing pregnancies. However, the sensationalism surrounding these medications is giving them a far more controversial reputation, encouraging Americans to think of eggs as worthy of personhood rights. This view is made ridiculous by the satirical resolution formed by Wilmington’s City Council which reflects similar ideologies onto the male population, highlighting the absurdity of creating such laws in the first place and doing so without fully considering the female point of view.
The resolution reads, “If every female egg is deemed by the government to be a living being…it follows that every sperm of a male should be likewise deemed by the government to be a living being.” It further states that men should be prevented from destroying their own semen, as this is a violation of the prospective personhood rights to be bestowed upon both eggs and sperm, and neglecting personhood rights for sperm would be a strike against equality between the sexes.
Granting personhood rights is essentially equating every gamete to a dependent minor, thus depositing semen anywhere except a woman’s vagina would be considered the same as leaving an infant on the side of the road. So beware, hormone-frenzied males of Madison. This bit of “seminal” legislation could label you guilty of mass murder, child abuse and abandonment after one bout of lonely masturbation.
Loretta Walsh, council member and author and sponsor of the resolution, could not have chosen a more acute or hilarious method to reveal the hypocrisy exhibited by today’s representatives and lobbyists. Restricting access to female birth control, which is not necessarily used for sexual purposes, based on religious beliefs while providing men access to birth controls that work in a similar manner (condoms prevent sperm from meeting eggs just as the pill prevents eggs from encountering sperm) is anything but American. In a country founded on equality and freedom, it seems odd that the only acceptable form of female birth control is abstinence while men have full access to commonly used spermicides, condoms and a variety of other treatments.
Wilmington’s resolution calls on not only the state of Delaware but the entire U.S. government to create a bill promoting gender equality based on the resolution, an unlikely but interesting request. Instead of calling a press conference to bash their opponents, the Council is utilizing the measures their conservative counterparts have employed to show the duplicity that exists regarding these issues.
Though the resolution is incredibly extreme, its intentions are clear. No bill need be passed for Walsh and her colleague’s point to be made; the rights of women must involve the voices of women.
Kate is a freshman majoring in English and Spanish. Please send all feedback to opinion@dailycardinal.com.
