If you keep up with current events, perhaps you've noticed that suddenly Viagra keeps popping up in our national discourse. Amidst the maelstrom of the country's culture wars over contraception and familiy planning, Viagra has become a counterpoint that's invoked as a symbol of the inequity between benefits for men and women in healthcare. Perhaps the Daily Show's Jon Stewart put it most succinctly when he asked, "How is it that women can't get their pill and men can get their pill?" The debate was sparked by President Obama's healthcare reforms around contraception, which include a provision that faith-based institutions or employers must either cover - or have their health insurance carriers cover - contraception for women, even if that contraception is against their faith.
GOP candidates, conservatives, and religious leaders have objected, while the reforms' proponents have questioned why institutions that would deny contraception coverage still cover drugs like Viagra. Especially since some of that Viagra is most likely going to single males, who are using it to have sex outside of marriage, which is also a religious violation for some of these same faiths.
In unrelated legislation, Virginia's lawmakers are considering a bill mandating ultrasounds for women seeking abortions. State senator Janet Howell proposed an amendment to the bill that would have required men to get a digital prostate exam and cardiac stress test before obtaining a Viagra prescription. That amendment did not pass, but certainly made its point and did raise questions about compelling women to undergo an invasive procedure. The Virginia House ultimately dropped the original requirement, which called for transvaginal ultrasounds, and scaled it back to external ultrasounds.
There have been a number of arguments put forward that place Viagra on one side of the health benefits equation, and contraception or abortion on the other. Maybe it's comparing apples and oranges. Still, conservatives haven't exactly been leaping up to come to Viagra's defense.
