I’ve had this post on the back burner for months, since a commenter at Shakesville (I think) said, you could never get away with restricting men’s access to Viagra the way state legislatures have restricted women’s access to abortion in America. And no, you couldn’t. But interestingly enough, it’s pretty easy to make a set of arguments for restricting access to Viagra, that are pretty similar to the arguments for restricting access to abortion. For the most part, all you have to do is search the text, and replace “woman” with “man”, “abortion” with “Viagra”, and “ends a human life” with “begins a human life”. (If pre-born human life is that important to you, you should take its creation as seriously as its destruction.) Then there are a few restrictions that claim they’re protecting women, and you just have to look at the flip-side: preventing men from hurting women. For some of the restrictions, I’ve invented an imaginary evil radical feminist anti-het-sex conspiracy to substitute for the Religious Right.
Every restriction on access to Viagra I propose below, is either a fact of life, or a legislated restriction, on abortion in at least one, and often many, American states. When the restrictions and their justifications are imposed on men, they look pretty radically man-hating (never mind that being unable to get a hardon is nowhere near as traumatic as going through childbirth against your will), but in their anti-abortion form, it’s not just fringe whackaloons making the arguments I’ll list, it’s people elected to public office.
1. Taking a medication that allows a man to have intercourse also lets him possibly create a new human life. The creation of a new human life is an important decision, not to be taken lightly, without being aware of all the facts and thinking them over. Therefore, before he can fill his prescription for Viagra, a man must receive counseling, in-person, from the same person as will be handing him his pills. This counseling contains information mandated by the state about contraception, the responsibilities of parenthood, and the legal and financial obligations of child support. Some of that information may be factually incorrect. The man must wait up to three days before returning to pick up his pills. During those three days, the man must visit a Radical Feminist Re-education Centre* where people will scream at him that all heterosexual sex is rape and make him watch graphic videos about complications of childbirth, to try to get him to change his mind. No Radical Feminist Re-education Centre has agreed to perform this counseling, making it impossible to fulfill the requirements. Note: this legislation was passed, but the worst elements of it are on hold due to a legal challenge. My main reference only includes legislation currently in effect. Extra citation
2. While Viagra is generally a pretty safe medication to take (in the absence of certain known contraindications), the ramifications of allowing somebody to possibly create new life are serious and require extra care. While nurse practitioners and physician assistants, under supervision of a physician, can prescribe many medications with similar risk profiles, Viagra can only be prescribed by a licensed physician. Only fully qualified and licensed pharmacists, not their assistants, may dispense it. In some cases, physicians must have a second licensed physician sign off on their decision to prescribe. Doctors who prescribe Viagra, and pharmacies that stock it, should be subject to extra licensing requirements and more stringent facility standards. Some of these standards may have been constructed with the knowledge that existing providers would be unable to comply by the stated deadline.
3. We don’t want to facilitate rape, so we have to be careful not to sell Viagra to rapists. In order to have their Viagra prescription filled, a man must provide a criminal background check, and since he may simply not have been caught yet, he must provide written consent from the person or persons he intends to have intercourse with. (I intend this as the flipside of parental notification and consent laws)
4. Some people have religious and moral objections to the sex some men may be having while on Viagra. They should not be compelled to fund something they believe is immoral, nor should they be penalized for acting on their conscience. Therefore subsidized insurance plans under the future insurance exchanges proposed under Obamacare, private insurance plans, and especially insurance plans for public employees, which are taxpayer-funded, must not pay for Viagra. Medical practitioners who refuse to prescribe or dispense Viagra on moral or religious grounds are immune to professional sanction.
5. Because of the onerous licensing requirements, expensive facility requirements, the fact that the Radical Feminist Re-educators are constantly picketing their homes and clinics (when they’re not vandalizing or firebombing them), harassing their patients and families, and shooting them, very few doctors or pharmacists are willing to be involved in the provision of Viagra. As a result, 86% of American counties are without a doctor willing to provide it, or a pharmacy willing to stock it.
With the exception of some components of #1, all information is from Remapping Debate.org.
9 comments
September 19, 2011 at 6:41 am
tildeb
How uncomfortable it would be to have to wear the shoe from the other foot. I especially like the mandatory lecturing and having two doctors agree to the prescription.
LikeLike
September 19, 2011 at 11:13 am
Beijing York
Brilliant!
LikeLike
September 19, 2011 at 5:24 pm
renetascian
Society is apt to allow men to do whatever they want with their bodies, and apt to prevent women from having rights over their bodies? Sound familiar anyone? Ever notice the “pro-choice lunacy” comes from the churches and synagogues? I always find it laughable when the religious and nut-bag alike feel it’s their right to exercise their rights over others. However, subjugation is hardly new to the Christian Reich. If they had their way, GLBT people would only be allowed to go outside when the heterosexuals didn’t have to see them, and women would be stuck at homes or shelters because men could do as they like, but women would have to deal with the consequences of those actions as second class citizens. When sex produces a child it’s the woman who loses her rights, not the male who could have done that to countless other women. I blame the patriarchal religious under water basket weaving bullshite that goes on in the religious conservative circles. If there was 10,000 human beings on Earth, I could see protest to abortion as a potentially valid argument; however, it would be an interesting turn if the person who denies the right of another’s body be required to raise the child. Might change their tune a bit, eh?
That sounds like a reasonable response, right? If you protest an abortion, you must pay for and raise that child. I’d prefer that the fertile women of the world had right’s the their body, but that mechanism would certainly make the “pro-choice” lunatics put their money where their mouth is. Because I see that as part of the problem. They force the bringing of life into this world, then the refuse to take care of those once they are already in it. And if you ask me, the world is hardly under-populated. Understanding this mentality loosely requires understanding of the dogma from which it originates. Abortion kills future soldiers and mothers of soldiers for the Christian Reich, therefore if society has it’s way they’ll lose their reinforcements 18 years down the line. For every new child brought into this world, there is a new soul they can indoctrinate and make die for their cause. It’s not a deliberate mentality of most, but it was and is the source mentality of these convictions dogma ratified by the religious (breed often so you may overwhelm your foe). No one has the right to your body other than you, and I reject any such notion that anyone does. But if they did attempt to do so, they better well be ready to accept the consequences of their actions rather than being armchair moralists making laws and decisions that don’t apply to them.
LikeLike
September 19, 2011 at 7:24 pm
Palaverer
Bravo!
LikeLike
September 22, 2011 at 8:32 pm
The Arbourist
Now we just need a follow up article along similar lines with regards to the anti-choice nutters who harass women as they access health centers.
LikeLike
September 23, 2011 at 1:33 am
renetascian
Or perhaps stage a protest outside of a clinic the provides orchiectomies to men who don’t want to have children to prove how ridiculous it is and post it to you-tube, then blog about the comments :).
LikeLike
August 12, 2012 at 6:19 am
The DWR Sunday Disservice – Killing is Wrong(?) « Dead Wild Roses
[…] sake of argument that you think that “life” begins conception. It is an erroneous, problematic assumption at best. So, what this comes down to is whether or not you think women get to makes […]
LikeLike
July 4, 2013 at 7:42 pm
Rob F
Like this (via Pandagon).
LikeLike
July 4, 2013 at 9:07 pm
The Arbourist
@Rob F
Nice, very nice. Thank you for the link. :)
LikeLike