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If the government decided that Viagra wasn’t necessary (which strictly speaking, it isn’t), and decided that it shouldn’t be covered, you would not get any argument from me. But the bigger issue here is Boxer’s misunderstanding of how analogies work. Boxer clearly doesn’t understand that the moral discomfort that most Americans have with abortion isn’t about sex; it’s about killing what is going to be, in a very short time, a human being. And this is analogous to Viagra in what way?/Clayton Cramer. More here.
Question: What do you make of U.S. Sen. Barbara Boxer’s comment, comparing an effort to limit women’s access to abortion to restricting men’s access to Viagra.
D.F. Oliveria is a columnist and blogger for The Spokesman-Review. Huckleberries Online was judged the best 2008 Idaho newspaper blog by the Idaho Press Club. And the best 2007 news blog in the Pacific Northwest by the Society for Professional Journalist. Print Huckleberries is a past winner of the Herb Caen Memorial Column contest by the National Association of Newspaper Columnists. The Readership Institute of Northwestern University cited this blog as a good example of online community journalism.
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Sisyphus on December 09 at 11:07 a.m.
Same as the Supreme Court, that women should be able to make choices about their own reproductive systems without interference from the government.
bcnqrgd on December 09 at 11:07 a.m.
Most americans must mean only those people that Cramer talks to….
nic on December 09 at 11:19 a.m.
Hey, go easy on Clayton… he’s a published author. There for, his authoritative authority is more awesome than your asinine answers.
/sarcasm off
nic on December 09 at 11:20 a.m.
“And this is analogous to Viagra in what way?”
Well, one could lead to the other.
simpleton on December 09 at 11:40 a.m.
Isn’t one of the arguments that conservatives make against health care reform is that they don’t want the government to come between a patient and their doctor? That it’s up to the doctor and patient to decide what’s “necessary”, not some bureaucrat?
scootermom on December 09 at 12:33 p.m.
I support reproductive health care. That means individuals get to make choices about their reproductive health. That means the decision to have sex, not have sex, carry a pregnancy to term, or not. And yes, abortion is health care. It is a medical procedure that is elective. Just like carry a pregnancy to term is elective. Indivuduals should make these choices - not the government, and certainly not Mr. Cramer.
hmoffsuite on December 09 at 12:38 p.m.
Abortion should not become a form of birth control.
Fixer on December 09 at 12:43 p.m.
Well, some folks would kill to get some Viagra…
Smacky on December 09 at 12:45 p.m.
Neither should Viagra, hmoffsuite. So far all we have to show for the health care reform is enough red herring to feed the population of Fejo.
Stickman on December 09 at 3:09 p.m.
hmo: Amen
richard on December 09 at 8:48 p.m.
abortion supporters never seem to have anything other to offer than Rule #1 in the Book of Justifications for abortion … “the government has no right to come between me and my reproductive rights.”
What I find odd - but not surprising - is that these are very often the some people who want to deny me the right to keep government out of making decisions about MY HEALTH CARE - whether it involves reproductive rights or not.
They are often the same people who want to deny me the right to not have government interfere with what kind of car I drive, how much of my money the government can confiscate to pay for THEIR agenda.
They are the same people who want to deny my right to not have government intude in any number of areas of my life I don’t want them involved in.
I guess these liberals only want government out of their lives when they want to deny life to their offspring.
Odd set of priorities they have, these oh-so progressives.
saraeanderson on December 10 at 7:32 p.m.
Cramer is right that erectile dysfunction is a men’s reproductive health problem, and thus deserves coverage. But he analogizes completely incorrectly (and so do a lot of pro-choice folks, which drives me bonkers).
Abortion is a part of many women’s reproductive health care, but it goes far beyond “sexual satisfaction.” Reproductive organs are organs, and thus they need proper care if a person is going to be healthy. If reproductive health advocates are going to succeed in proving that reproductive health is not a luxury, they have to apply the reasoning to men as well as women. They sometimes play it like some kind of revenge scheme, where if my sexual health isn’t important, it’s fair to let men’s reproductive health needs go unmet for a while. No, it’s not. It just further promotes the erroneous idea that sexual function is a luxury. EQUALITY: UR DOIN IT WRONG.
By the way, I figured out that this story went up here at HBO because some other site I read assumed Cramer works for the S-R, and they caught his analogy fail, but not their own.