As members of Georgia’s House of Representatives
debate whether to prohibit abortions for women more than 20 weeks
pregnant, House Democrats  introduced their own reproductive rights
plan: No more vasectomies that leave "thousands of children ... deprived
of birth."

Rep. Yasmin Neal, a Democrat from the Atlanta suburb of Jonesboro, planned on Wednesday to introduce HB 1116, which would prevent men from vasectomies unless needed to avert serious injury or death.

The bill reads: "It is patently unfair that men avoid the rewards of
unwanted fatherhood by presuming that their judgment over such matters
is more valid than the judgment of the General Assembly. ... It is the
purpose of the General Assembly to assert an invasive state interest in
the reproductive habits of men in this state and substitute the will of
the government over the will of adult men."

“If we legislate women’s bodies, it’s only fair that we legislate
men’s,” said Neal, who said she wanted to write bill that would generate
emotion and conversation the way anti-abortion bills do. “There are too
many problems in the state. Why are you under the skirts of women? I’m
sure there are other places to be."

Personally, Neal said, she has no qualms with vasectomies.

“But even if it were proposed as a serious issue,” she said, “it’s
still not my place as a woman to tell a man what to do with his body."

The anti-vasectomy bill was a response to a bill that would punish abortions performed after the 20^th
week of pregnancy with prison sentences between one and 10 years.
Georgia law currently prohibits abortion after the second trimester,
except to preserve the life and health of the mother. Neal's bill
borrows some language directly from the anti-abortion bill.

The anti-abortion bill makes exceptions to avert death or “serious
risk of substantial and irreversible physical impairment of a major
bodily function” of the mother, but doesn’t include “diagnosis or claim
of a mental or emotional condition.” If an abortion occurs after the
20th week, the bill requires doctors to attempt to deliver a living
baby.

Earlier discussions about the bill have been “outstanding,” said Rep.
Doug McKillip, a Republican from Athens, Georgia, who introduced the anti-abortion bill
this month. He said legislators are “drilling down" on questions about
when a fetus can feel pain and what exceptions can allow abortions later
in pregnancy, and he expects more testimony late this week.

“I’m just disappointed in my colleague, that they would take this
opportunity to make light of a very important topic,” McKillip said. “I
believe this is a serious topic deserving of serious debate. It feels
like a poor attempt at humor.”

Neal said she's serious about making legislators recognize women's rights to make private decisions about their bodies.

"I hope that through the madness this has caused, it gets him to
understand where the woman is coming from," she said. "There are a
number of women in other states trying the same ploys we’re trying
here."

Earlier this month, Democratic Oklahoma Sen. Constance Johnson added – then withdrew –
a provision to an anti-abortion bill that read "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." The state Senate passed the bill this month.

In January, as the Virginia state Senate debated a bill that required
women to have an ultrasound before an abortion, Democrat Janet Howell
attached an amendment that required men to have rectal exams and cardiac
stress tests before they could receive prescriptions for erectile
dysfunction medication like Viagra. The amendment was rejected in the
Senate, 21-19.

CNN affiliate WAVY
reported that hundreds gathered this week to protest the ultrasound
bill,  which is up for a vote in Virginia's House of Delegates, and
another that says life begins at conception.

On the Georgia House floor, Neal doesn't anticipate her anti-vasectomy bill will generate much serious debate.

"If it moves anywhere," she said, "that’ll be a very interesting day."