have a moral objection to paying for any kind of erectile dysfunction medicine in the new health reform bill and I think men who want to use it should just pay for it out of pocket. After all, I won't ever need such a pill. And anyway, it's no biggie. Just because most of them can get it under their insurance today doesn't mean they shouldn't have it stripped from their coverage in the future because of my moral objections. (I don't think there's even been a Supreme Court ruling making wood a constitutional right. I might be wrong about that.)
Many of the men who are prescribed this medication are on Medicare, so I think it should be stripped out of that coverage as well. And unlike the payments for abortion, which actually lower overall medical costs (pregnancy obviously costs much, much more) banning tax dollars from covering any kind of Viagra would result in a substantial savings:
One first has to ask what the moral objections to erections are and why it is in the best interest of public policy to oppose them. The moral objections to abortion are pretty clear: abortion kills babies. As a matter of public policy, it's a very bad idea to use taxpayer funding to help kill future taxpayers (and U.S. citizens), and the moral objection to killing innocents is well codified in our law. There's no similar history of objecting to erections.
Moreover, the societal cost of abortion is high; the desensitization of Americans to the taking of life is more apparent that possibly at any time in our history. We, in fact, can see human life in the womb, through ultrasound, and even the awful Roe vs. Wade argued that snuffing out human life (or potential human life) is something that should be heavily restricted. There's no similar rational objection to erectile medications.
I suppose Digby is attempting to argue that stripping funding of abortions from the Democrats' health care proposals is simply a form of sexism. The problem, of course, is that here is possibly the best example we have where men and women are not interchangeable. Men don't get pregnant and have babies or kill babies in the claim that it is "their body." Only women do that. The right (or not) to have an erection comes nowhere close to the same societal implications.
I actually have no problem with the idea of restricting taxpayer-funded health care from paying for erectile dysfunction treatments. It's not a necessary service, and only the most basic care should be covered by the taxpayers. If you want Viagra, pay for it yourself. And if you want an abortion, pay for that yourself, as well.
This is the unintended consequence of Democrats' determination to take over the health care system. An intended consequence is a permanent, economically-enslaved majority.
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