US lawmaker seeks to stop male masturbation

Jessica Farrar, a Democratic member of the Texas house of representatives, has sponsored a bill to stop male masturbation.

According to BBC, the lawmaker said she decided to sponsor the bill on male reproductive rights to highlight how women’s rights were being undermined.

Explaining how women’s rights were undermined, the lawmaker made reference to a proposed law seeking to force women to choose whether to bury or cremate the embryonic remains of either a miscarriage or abortion.

But in the draft law, all “emissions outside of a woman’s vagina, or created outside of a health or medical facility” will carry a $100 (£81) fine.

She said the “emission should be considered an act against an unborn child”.

“It got me thinking, maybe what’s good for the goose is good for the gander,” Farrar told the BBC.

“If we are taking these measures because of the sanctity of life, well, we just cannot waste any seed.

“It is clear this is about manipulation. As if every woman has not thought about this [abortion]. The fact is, only she knows what has happened in her life.”

Farrar expressed optimism that her bill “will wake people up”.

The lawmaker added that more pressing issues, such the fact that Texas has the highest rate of maternal mortality in the developed world, needed to be addressed.

However, she has come under heavy criticisms for the law she is proposing.

On Twitter someone asked how only a fertilised embryo needs protecting, wondering if she would also use the law on menstruating women.

Across the US, lawmakers have been sponsoring bills which women such as Farrar see as an infringement of their human rights.

Recently, in Oklahoma, a lawmaker sponsored a bill to force women to take permission from their sexual partner before they could have an abortion.