Female politician proposes $100 fine for men who masturbate in bid to challenge US abortion laws

House Bill 4260 has all the legal jargon of any other draft law presented to the Texas legislature.

And its stated aim – to protect unborn children everywhere – is a hot topic among American politicians.

But read its three pages and it turns out Jessica Farrar, a Democratic member of the Texas House of Representatives, has an unusual way of going about it: Fining men $100 for masturbating anywhere except in an approved medical facility.

Her aim is clear. The bill is a satirical attack on the way male politicians interfere in women’s bodies and seeks to apply the same health restrictions, attitudes and bigotry to men.

“A lot of people find the bill funny,” she told The Houston Chronicle. “What’s not funny are the obstacles that Texas women face every day, that were placed there by legislatures making it very difficult for them to access healthcare.”

Texas has some of the most restrictive abortion laws in the US.

Conservatives across the country believe they have an ally in the White House in the form of Donald Trump, who flirted during the campaign with the idea of locking up women if they had illegal terminations.

Mrs Farrar said the final straw came among a slew of bills, one of which would have forced women to choose whether to bury or cremate an aborted fetus – all part of a strategy to make women feel guilty about their choice.

Her bill ridicules those ideas with procedures to be followed by men requesting a vasectomy, Viagra prescription or a colonoscopy. Patients should be given a booklet entitled a Man’s Right to Know, for example, complete with artistic illustration of the procedures.

“An attending physician must administer a medically-unnecessary digital rectal exam and magnetic resonance imagining of the rectum before administering an elective vasectomy or colonoscopy procedure, or prescribing Viagra,” it reads.

Mrs Farrar said this part mimics the trans-vaginal ultrasound woman have when they are seeking an abortion, which is all part of what she said was a “guilt mechanism” to persuade women to change their minds.

The money shot comes in a section of her bill dedicated to “hospital masturbatory assistance registry” which details facilities to provide “fully-abstinent encouragement counselling”.

It goes on to say that “masturbatory emissions” will be collected at health facilities for the purposes of conception only.

“Emissions outside of a woman’s vagina, or created outside of a health or medical facility, will be charged a $100 civil penalty for each emission, and will be considered an act against an unborn child, and failing to preserve the sanctity of life,” it says.