A brilliant Democrat in Oklahoma has tagged an amendment onto her state’s proposed Personhood law, making sure that the government doesn’t just intrude into women’s reproductive lives, but men’s as well:
Oklahoma State Senator Constance Johnson, a Democrat, has offered an amendment to the “personhood” bill pending in the state legislature. The pending bill, if passed, would declare that “the unborn child at every stage of development (has) all the rights, privileges, and immunities available to other persons, citizens, and residents of this state.”
Johnson writes that “the Personhood bill would potentially allow governmental intrusion into families’ personal lives by policing what happens to a woman’s eggs without any similar thought to what happens to a man’s sperm.” Her amendment reads:
“provided, however, any action in which a man ejaculates or otherwise deposits semen anywhere but in a woman’s vagina shall be interpreted and construed as an action against an unborn child.”
But that’s not enough. The Bible is pretty clear that only the Lord knows which sperm and which egg will join to create a person. Interfering with that in any way is very very bad — so we should give the Lord as many opportunities as possible to make sure that the right gametes can come together. As the wonderful Frances Kissling says in the comments to that article:
This [spilled semen] amendment is critical. We must protect spatial separated persons – sperm and eggs. The creator, the bible tells us, knew each of us before we were “knit” in the womb. He knew the very sperm and egg that would unite to make us who we are. Given that reality, it is imperative that we all have as much sex as possible. For women, ovulation is the time when we must be sure to give our egg a chance to join with the sperm that it was destined to meet.
The fact that God chose not to tell us which of our eggs and our sperm would join means that a celibate priesthood and sisterhood must be ended. Each priest and nun knows not what God intended for their eggs and sperm and therefore, procreative sex is essential lest we prevent the person already know to God from coming into being.