WASHINGTON, DC – 
Iowa State Senator Joni Ernst is sponsoring a bill aimed at society’s most heinous criminals – sex offenders. Ernst gained notoriety after her US Senate campaign commercial about animal castration went viral. The attention-getting ad contained the line: “I grew up castrating hogs on an Iowa farm. So when I get to Washington, I’ll know how to cut pork.”
“I was ridiculed from a lot of people after that and had to disappear for a while,” said Ernst. “But then I thought long and hard about what matters to me. I kept hearing this voice in my head, and it said ‘go with what you know … go with what you know.’”
Ernst introduced a House Resolution that would require castration of all male sex offenders beginning in 2015. “The system we have going now isn’t working well at all,” she said. “In the criminal justice system, sexually based offenses are considered especially heinous. We need stricter laws to protect society.”
Sex offenders are required to list themselves in a state’s sex offender registry. When they relocate, they are required to notify neighbors of their sex offender status. Often, drugs that suppress sex drive are used as a part of a ‘chemical’ castration treatment.
“I’m aware of chemical castration,” said the state senator, “but people often go off their meds. The current system also results in neighborhood unrest, and the offender eventually moves from location to location which is dangerous. Eventually, some of them slip through the cracks, and re-offend. The resolution I’m sponsoring will put an end to all of that.”
“That’s just nuts,” said human rights advocate Paul Zubra. “We say we live in a civilized society, but this is the most uncivilized society can get, not counting the death penalty. I can understand incarceration and monitoring, even living in a sort of halfway house setting because at least there’s therapy involved there. Sex offenders are the worst of society. But, to castrate…Oh man – the penis? It just leaves a bad taste in my mouth.”
“My method is permanent,” said Sen. Ernst. “One medically supervised procedure and snip-snap, it’s done. We’re not talking about some primitive act with sharp stones or hot pokers and steak knives – we’re talking about scalpels and doctors and nurses and hospitals. It would be great to just let the victimized party hack at the genitals of their attacker with a meat cleaver, but that isn’t what this bill is about.”
Whether or not the resolution passes, Sen. Ernst knows that she will forever be associated with neutering. “That doesn’t bother me,” she said. “Sometimes you just gotta grab life by the balls, and then cut those balls clean off. The important thing here is I’m doing what I know is right. It’s all about getting to the root of the problem, and nipping it in the bud.”
The bill comes up for a vote before the Senate’s Thanksgiving recess.