UPDATE: The public hearing on the Anti-Vasectomy Act has been moved to room 216 of the Capitol.
House and Senate legislators will hold a public hearing on Wednesday to call attention to the double standard on reproductive rights by introducing the Anti-Vasectomy Act. Full release below the fold.
MEDIA ADVISORY
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
February 21, 2012
Contact: Sophie Loghman
House Democratic Caucus
(770) 265-1069
sophie@gahousedems.com
HOUSE DEMOCRATS TO HOLD PUBLIC HEARING ON ANTI-VASECTOMY BILL
Atlanta, Ga. – February 21, 2012 – House and Senate legislators will hold a public hearing on Wednesday to call attention to the double standard on reproductive rights by introducing the Anti-Vasectomy Act.
“Thousands of children are deprived of birth in this state every year because of the lack of state regulation over vasectomies,” said Rep. Yasmin Neal, author of the bill. “It is patently unfair that men can avoid unwanted fatherhood by presuming that their judgment over such matters is more valid than the judgment of the General Assembly, while women’s ability to decide is constantly up for debate throughout the United States.”
House Minority Leader Stacey Abrams added, “The Republican attack on women’s reproductive rights is unconscionable. What is more deplorable is the hypocrisy of HB 954’s author. If we follow his logic, we believe it is the obligation of this General Assembly to assert an equally invasive state interest in the reproductive habits of men and substitute the will of the government over the will of adult men.”
The bill’s author, Rep. Yasmin Neal, along with other members of the Georgia House Democratic Caucus, will be available to speak with press afterwards.
What: Public Hearing on The Anti-Vasectomy Act
When: Wednesday, February 22
3-4:30PM
Where: The CLOB, Room 515
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21 Responses to Rep. Yasmin Neal speaks for me
Help Daniel
My vas deferens, my decision.
my uterus, my decision
Congratulations, you got the joke.
Its uterUS, not uterYOU.
Yeah! Democrats have finally started playing hardball with conservative thugs. Who elected the Taliban into the Georgia legislature anyway?
Leave it to the democrats to come up with some of the dumbest ideas. Thanks for putting Georgia in the national spotlight as a bunch of dumb asses. Rep. Yasmin Neal is a complete moron!
Wow. Genuine irony in blog comments. This is a monumental day.
I’m not familiar with J Roy. Is he pro-life?
The rest of the country already has a very low opinion of all of the south. Rep. Neal just improved it a thousand-fold. This country needs more people like her…not you.
Well at least it won’t just be the GA Dems shooting blanks if this passes.
Should have said “us” GA Dems. Please don’t lump me in with J Roy.
Makes great sense and should be attached to the abotion bill, so they can pass at the same time.
Its just good thinking from the government, Protecting you from yourself for over 200 years now!
It makes perfect sense. Birth control is the same as killing a baby.
Men who elect to get a vasectomy are trying to be responsible. Women who choose to have an abortion are choosing a solution to correct their irresponsibiltiy. Most women who get pregnant do not get pregnant because they are on birth control or use protection. They get pregnant because they chose not to use birth control, protection or to make sure the man used protection prior to engaging in sex. Whether you are pro-life or pro-choice is irrelevant. In most cases abortion serves as a solution to correct poor choices and irresponsible decisions.
Given that you’re a man, I don’t know what expertise you have on that subject.
But it’s actually far worse than imagined here Steve. Sadly, once again the facts seemingly have little sway in the matter. It’s not like they’re hard to discover here either. From the Guttmacher Institute :
http://www.guttmacher.org/in-the-know/pregnancy.html
“What proportion of pregnancies in the United States are unintended?
Answer
Nearly half of all U.S. pregnancies are unintended (49%); about 43% of these end in abortion.”
This has been true for more than a decade, as any public health nurse/worker might have told you. Moreover, the rates are similar worldwide too.
“Have levels of unintended pregnancy in the United States changed in recent years?
Answer:
Following a considerable decline in the overall U.S. unintended pregnancy rate between 1981 and 1994, the rate has remained essentially flat: About 5% of U.S. women still have an unintended pregnancy every year.”
That last bit is the hopeful news here:
http://www.guttmacher.org/media/nr/2012/02/08/index.html
Here’s the relevant abstract short:
“Wednesday, February 8, 2012
U.S. TEEN PREGNANCY RATE AT LOWEST LEVEL IN NEARLY 40 YEARS
Rates Down Among All Racial and Ethnic Groups;
Disparities Persist
Teen pregnancies have declined dramatically in the United States since their peak in the early 1990s, as have the births and abortions that result; in 2008, teen pregnancies reached their lowest level in nearly 40 years, according to “U.S. Teenage Pregnancies, Births and Abortions, 2008: National Trends by Age, Race and Ethnicity,” by Kathryn Kost and Stanley Henshaw of the Guttmacher Institute. In 2008, the teen pregnancy rate was 67.8 pregnancies per 1,000 women aged 15–19, which means that about 7% of U.S. teens became pregnant that year. This rate represents a 42% decline from the peak in 1990 (116.9 per 1,000). Similarly, the birthrate declined 35% between 1991 and 2008, from 61.8 to 40.2 births per 1,000 teens; the abortion rate declined 59% from its 1988 peak of 43.5 abortions per 1,000 teens to its 2008 level of 17.8 per 1,000.”
Again, not hard to discover with the magic of the Google. So there’s progress to be had & seen, should we actually want to have it. But hey, it’s so much easier, and indeed somehow gratifying to inveigh against all those (hypothetical) poor, deluded, dirty, hapless sluts.
You know all those women who are not being seen as fully credible moral (or adult) agents worthy to testify before Congress about their own lived experiences. The ‘locus of sin’ in the minds of many fundamentalists & the CC. Why worry about Sharia Law? We’ve already got a powerful lobby working for its effective return in the form of a more ‘traditional’ Medieval theocracy.
JMP
Steve i’m not a mechanic either, but I have changed my oil and replaced the brakes. Why are to assume that women are the only people who can comment on abortion. I have not experienced racism and i’m white, does that make me incapable of having an honest discussion about racism.
No, but I presume you’ve experienced and educated yourself about racism, and perhaps you can feel empathy for those who have been discriminated against.
I’m a progressive white male, and I can’t even pretend to get into the mind of a woman, much less a pregnant woman. Tell me, what is going through a woman’s mind after she was brutally raped, and impregnated by her assailant? Also, was that a “mistake” of hers that she’s trying to correct? And what gives you the right to tell her what she can and cannot do with her body?
I support Rep. Neal’s bill, not because I actually think vasectomies should be banned, but because she raises a valid point– why can men legislate women’s bodies, but women can’t legislate men’s?
Steve you prove with your comments that progressive’s take parts of a statement and leave the rest out. I said most. Most women who get pregnant do not get pregnant because they were raped. Most get pregnant due to consensual sex. You question what right I have to tell a woman what to do with her body, well what right does a woman have to tell me what to do with mine. I find it funny that you call yourself a progressive. You are an example of MOST progressive’s. You want the world to be all-inclusive. When someone voices an opinion you do not like you start name calling. Debate and discussion requires differing opinions to discuss in a rational manner, not result in elementary name calling.
I’m sorry, do you actually believe that anyone, Rep. Neal included, believes that vasectomies should be banned?
Steve’s question answered:
http://www.dailykos.com/story/2012/02/22/1067418/-Forced-Birth-in-the-Bad-Old-Days
There’s 1000′s of such similar stories. We’re just not hearing these stories due to the massive disinformation campaigns that insist despite all evidence to the contrary that 1.) teens are not having sex 2.) premarital sex is rare and also not happening and 3.) All/Most women are basically irresponsible sluts.
Because we all know, & you know Intuitively that the technology is Flawless and Works Every Time. Just like starting your car! Magic like that. There’s never any human errors allowed. Because there’s NEVER any car crashes due to human errors. Or any sort of Mechanical Failures in this scheme.
Again because the facts just don’t matter as much as the emotional arguments do:
Some more inconvenient facts:
From: Family Planning Perspectives
Volume 33, Number 1, January/February 2001
“Contraceptive Failure in the First Two Years of Use:Differences Across Socioeconomic Subgroups”
By Nalini Ranjit, Akinrinola Bankole, Jacqueline E. Darroch and Susheela Singh
http://www.guttmacher.org/pubs/journals/3301901.html
Facts, Opinion, why bother with informed opinions? Uninformed is obviously more fun. JMP