Absurdity
Red State Passes Law Classifying Contraception as Weapons of Mass Disruption
By BSN Staff, . BSN Network. Satire.
CAPITOL CITY, TENNESOTA. Governor Dale Hutchins signed HB 1147 into law Thursday morning, making Tennesota the first state in the nation to formally classify hormonal contraceptives, intrauterine devices, and emergency contraception as Weapons of Mass Disruption under its domestic security statutes. The signing ceremony was held at 9 a.m. and was attended by fourteen legislators, a pastor, and a golden retriever belonging to the House Majority Whip.
The bill's sponsor, Representative Clem Burford, described the legislation as a natural extension of the state's commitment to protecting life, the family unit, and quote, "the general predictability of the population going forward."
"We're not saying these women are terrorists," Burford clarified at a press conference Thursday afternoon. "We're saying the devices they are carrying have the potential to disrupt mass reproduction on a scale the state has a legitimate interest in addressing. That's just science."
HB 1147 amends the state's existing Homeland Continuity Act to include any pharmaceutical or medical device whose primary purpose is the prevention of a live birth. Under the new classification, pharmacists dispensing contraceptives are required to complete a Disruption Risk Assessment form, currently forty-three pages, before releasing the medication. The form includes fields for the patient's county of origin, stated reason for contraceptive use, and whether she has traveled outside the state in the past sixty days.
CVS and Walgreens have been given ninety days to install a secondary consultation window, physically separated from the general pharmacy counter by not less than six feet of ballistic-resistant glazing. The glazing requirement was inserted into the bill on the final day of debate by Representative Norma Pitts, who explained she was thinking more about the pharmacists.
The Department of Public Safety will oversee enforcement. Spokesperson Brent Faulk confirmed Thursday that the department is in the process of hiring forty new Contraceptive Compliance Officers, a role that requires a background check, a high school diploma, and completion of an online module described in the job listing as "Reproductive Threat Fundamentals: A Primer."
Emergency contraception, already sold behind the pharmacy counter in seven counties, will now be stored in a lockbox rated for Class III hazardous materials, the same category as ammonium nitrate and certain agricultural fungicides. A pharmacist in the capital who asked not to be named said she received the new storage guidelines by fax and spent forty minutes trying to determine whether the lockbox had to be fireproof or just fireproof-adjacent, which is a category she had not previously encountered in a professional context.
"The form asks me to assess hostile intent," she said. "I'm a pharmacist. I assess drug interactions. I don't have training in hostile intent. I barely have parking."
The law's opponents argued it would effectively eliminate contraceptive access in rural counties, where a single pharmacy serves multiple towns and a forty-three-page form represents a logistical obstacle that most patients will not clear before giving up and going home. Planned Parenthood of Tennesota said it was reviewing legal options, which it has been doing continuously since 2019 and which has not yet slowed anything down.
Representative Burford dismissed the criticism. He noted that the state still offers full access to contraception for any resident who completes the Risk Assessment, waits the mandatory seventy-two-hour disruption reflection period, and obtains a secondary signature from a licensed physician confirming that the patient's reproductive intentions do not pose a material threat to the community's demographic trajectory. He called this a streamlined process.
Governor Hutchins, who signed the bill with a pen shaped like a gavel because he owns one and likes to use it, said the law put Tennesota on the right side of history.
He then boarded a state helicopter to attend a ribbon-cutting for a new fertility clinic in the suburbs, which the state funded entirely with public money and which offers IVF starting at twelve thousand dollars per cycle, because life is precious and also expensive.
This is satire. The events and quotes are invented and none of it is real news.
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