Wilmington Council debate egg/sperm equality

Council members approved a tongue-in-cheek resolution urging Congress to consider equality issues related to legislation concerning female eggs and male sperm.

Councilwoman Loretta Walsh, D-at-large, says she introduced the resolution in anger after watching the debate in Washington over insurance coverage for birth control for women.  “I did wear red this evening because my temper has been up for the last two weeks over what has been happening in the country.”

Walsh’s Resolution #3641 calls for Congress to make a law “forbidding every man from destroying his semen.”  Walsh says the purpose of her pointed legislation is to shock male members of council and others.  She says she’ll consider the resolution a success “if I can make some of these men in our own legislature, or in other legislatures, squirm just a little bit, and to know for one second what it feels like to be a woman in this country.”

The resolution was approved in an 8 to 4 vote with one “present” vote.  Councilman Mike Brown, R-at-large, voted against the measure.  During the debate last night Brown tried to read a passage from the Bible concerning womens’ rights, but that attempt was shot down by Council President Norman Griffiths, who told Brown to stick to the resolution, adding, “We’re not going to quote from the Bible in here.”

Brown pivoted his argument and said that council should instead send a resolution to Congress asking for help with other “life” issues affecting the city, “helping us out with crime, helping us out with getting young people jobs, helping us out with the killings that’s going on in our city.”  

Councilman Paul Ignudo, D-7th district, says he agrees with the intent of the resolution, but he questioned how the irreverent resolution would make Wilmington City Council appear.  “When it’s a tongue in cheek, sarcastic and snarky take on this issue, I don’t know if that’s the message that we want to send.  That the City Council of Wilmington is a sarcastic, snarky, tongue-in-cheek organization.”

You can watch the debate from last night’s meeting on the city’s website.