With all my recent talk about contraception and the Church Bishops raging on about ‘attacks on religious liberties,’ a large number of women queried: “What about Viagra? Why take our birth control away from us and let men obtain erectile dysfunction drugs on employers’ health plans?”
Well, what about it, Bishops? What about that little blue pill to help with those moments when a man finds himself needing just a bit of help to pleasure himself? How does that work under this “religious liberties” issue?
According to Richard Doerflinger of the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops and reported to NPR:
The answer on Viagra coverage is usually yes, Catholic leaders say. And they argue that’s neither hypocritical nor sexist.
Procreation is something the Catholic church encourages. And Viagra and other erectile dysfunction drugs can be of help.
With a caveat. Mr. Doerflinger told NPR that many Catholic-based health plans are being told that these helpful ‘get me ups’ “should be prescribed for a medically identifiable problem to prevent wide abuse.”
So there is no confusion gentlemen–If you obtain a prescription for that little pleasure pill, you had better be shooting for your young second or third (don’t want to forget Newt) wife’s egg and saying a few prayers that you are around for your child’s high school graduation (at your age) or it had better be linked to some identifiable medical problem.
You know the kind of medical problems–like those associated with women and their use of birth control pills to control medical conditions such as endometriosis, migraine headaches, acne, menstrual pain and cramps–but different because the Bishops aren’t considering those female problems to be ‘covered’ medical issues.
Whoa, wait a minute! What medical condition is associated with an inability to have an erection except the inability to have an erection?
Bottom line—Erections good. Birth control pills bad. Does it surprise anyone that a group of old white men that purportedly aren’t having sex with anyone, including themselves, are more concerned with penises than with womens’ health issues?
