The sponsor of a bill to restrict how and when a man can have a vasectomy says her goal is to get people talking.
Representative Stacey Newman’s (D-St. Louis) bill is based on one that has been filed elsewhere in the U.S., but she says it is the first of those to receive a committee hearing. She has told the Committee on Governmental Affairs she filed it in response to other legislation dealing with religious objections to women’s reproductive health issues.
“We are seeing … some pretty invasive legislation dealing only with those decisions and those procedures that happen to women, basically removing those private decisions between a woman and her partner and her doctor and inserting the legislature.”
Newman’s proposal would keep a man from getting a vasectomy except to prevent death or to avoid physical impairment.
She says she wants to inspire a fresh perspective. “We never stop to think about these same restrictions as they apply to men making their own reproductive decisions.”
The Committee has taken no action on the legislation. Majority Floor Leader Tim Jones (R-Eureka) says if it makes it to the House Floor Calendar, he will give it the same consideration for time that he would any bill.
“I have not made it a practice to automatically just flat out not give bills floor time when I don’t agree with them … I largely believe that the will of the majority should prevail and should not be halted by one or two people.”
AUDIO: Mike Lear reports, :57