Should a Man Have to Swear on a Bible to Get Viagra?
Earlier this year, the Governor of Arkansas signed into law a bill that allows potential baby-daddies to veto abortions that are being sought by women who are pregnant with those men’s potential children. Notably, only eighteen per cent of the State of Arkansas’ lawmakers are women.
This kind of headline is hardly news anymore. There have been countless bills proposed by male lawmakers to restrict women’s access to safe abortions and even to birth control.
Some female lawmakers, however, are tired of their male colleagues passing bills to monitor the sexual and reproductive lives of women. In response, they’re striking back with a kind of legislative theatre — with bills that propose to regulate the reproductive rights of men.
Rep. Mary Lou Marzian (D-KY), is one of those women fighting back. She introduced HB 396, a bill that would require men seeking erectile dysfunction drugs, such as Viagra and Cialis, to get written consent for the prescription — from their wives.
Additionally, the men seeking Viagra or other erection-related prescriptions would have to take oaths — complete with their hands on Bibles — swearing that they will only use these drugs in order to have intercourse with their spouses and with no other women. Thus, if this bill passes, only married men in Kentucky would be eligible for prescriptions for erectile dysfunction drugs. Rather a deflating prospect, no doubt, for many male Kentucky voters.
As Rep. Marzian told The New York Times:
“I thought if we’re going to insert ourselves into women’s most private health care decisions, then we should insert ourselves into men’s most private health care decisions, as well.”
Though Rep. Marzian’s bill was introduced over a year ago, it “never saw the light of day again,” according to the pop culture news outlet Snopes.com. Yet the bill is now going viral on social media sites, proving that there is indeed demand for this kind of irony via legislation — when it comes to reproductive health care access.
Another female politician, Representative Jessica Farrar — this one in Texas — for her part, introduced a bill called HB 4260, or the “Man’s Right To Know Act.” This legislation proposes that a man must have served out a mandatory waiting period before getting a vasectomy or before receiving a prescription for Viagra. In addition, the Act requires that a man seeking a vasectomy or a prescription for Viagra must also submit to a digital rectal exam — which is medically unnecessary. These new rules, supporters say, mimic the various legal roadblocks, many of them medically unnecessary, put before women seeking abortions.
Rep. Farrar told MySanAntonio.com:
“A lot of people find the bill funny. What’s not funny are the obstacles that Texas women face every day, that were placed there by legislatures making it very difficult for them to access healthcare,”
So, while these two proposed bills aren’t likely to go anywhere, due to the male-majority State governments in both states, just the subversive act of female politicians proposing such laws — and the viral, and now national, reach of the media coverage — lets women who are tired of intrusive government meddling in personal medical matters, know that there are some politicians (with senses of humor) fighting on our side.
