By Rebecca Campbell
The amount of women who have reported rape or attempted rate in the state of Oklahoma is between 35%-45% higher than that of the other forty-nine states (“Sexual Violence,” 2015). That is a staggering percentage that means Oklahoma is lacking in its prevention of sexual assault and violence. In order to help fix the growing problem about the number of sexual assaults in the state, there is a bill that has been drafted by two members of the House of Representatives of Oklahoma Intercollegiate Legislature that will help prevent the growing amount of sexual assaults and rapes in the state. The aim of the bill is to make those accused of rape or sexual assault less likely to commit rape or sexual assault again.
The authors of the bill entitled, “The Deprive of Virility” Act of 2015 are Assistant Parliamentarian Hickey and journalist Robbins. Their aim in the writing the bill is not to discriminate between the two genders; they feel that anyone who is convicted and found guilty of sexual assault or rape, regardless of gender, should be punished fairly and equally. The bill as it was written states that both genders have the ability to be chemically castrated. For men, that will involve taking a hormone that will reduce their sex drive and sperm count. Any women convicted of sexual assault or rape would undergo an operation that would limit the amount of eggs she produced each month. Although that sounds unfair for the women, it is left to the judge’s discretion whether or not the man shall be chemically castrated. Chemical castration is mandatory for multiple repeaters. The authors’ purpose in making the distinction between the two sexes is to make sure that the people do not think that they are being sexist (Hickey, personal interview). And this bill does a very good job at that.