Judith Warner has a column in the New York Times today which highlights a few crucial hypocrisies in John McCain's stances on "women's issues." These are the same points Feministing and other sources have already pointed out repeatedly in recent weeks: regressive stances on abortion and birth control, and failure to live up to "straight talk" about equal pay.
The comments section beneath the column is a nightmare, of course, with a lot of ignorant comments from the broader, less feminist-educated audience that Warner reaches through the NYTimes venue. But I did learn something new from these commenters: There is an argument to be made for covering Viagra and not contraception ... and that argument is fucked.
From Adam:
I am struck particularly by ... the supposed hypocrisy of health insurance covering Viagra but not contraceptives. Has anyone stopped to think that this distinction is not irrational on the simple fact alone that contraceptives are not a health care product ? Contraceptives are designed to prevent the body from functioning naturally, that is, conceiving children following intercourse, whereas Viagra is intended to restore a natural function of the body that has been lost. One may argue that there is an inherent biological injustice involved because only women face the potential of bearing a child following intercourse, but this is not the concern of a health insurance company .
From mtm:
As per Viagra vs. birth control coverage; insurance is meant to cover illness and medically necessary surgical costs. Viagra fixes a broken system while birth control breaks a perfectly working system. There lies the difference
Of course, these commenters are so off-base and easily dismissed that I feel a little silly even amplifying them.
On the thread, many intelligent commenters go on to valiantly refute these aguments in some interesting ways, including
- by pointing out that, under Adam's rule, countless other drugs would also be excluded from insurance coverage, and
- by sharing personal stories of how contraceptive drugs are used in the treatment of various conditions, including Type 1 diabetes.
The latter is particularly popular, and I'm concerned that these folks are arguing for the coverage of contraceptives by pointing out they're not just a birth control method. This may be a helpful technicality, but it's also a cop-out. Primarily, birth control pills are a birth control method, and this fact ought to be enough to mandate their coverage by our insurance companies.
As I was reminded by Feministing's post on World Population Day recently, the right to determine family size -- the number and timing of one's children -- is a universal human right.
The UN Population Fund writes that
individuals have a basic human right to determine freely and responsibly the number and spacing of their children, yet modern contraception remains out of reach for hundreds of millions of women and men.
Do these people who preach against access to contraception really want to see American women and men added to the list of the "hundreds of millions" of people without access? When most are living in poor countries with infrastructure unable to provide access?
And, as an aside ... has any of these men had sex with a woman? Ever? It sure as hell doesn't sound like it.
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"Contraceptives are designed to prevent the body from functioning naturally, that is, conceiving children following intercourse whereas Viagra is intended to restore a natural function of the body that has been lost."
This argument always gets my goad, because um, erectile dysfunction is *also* the body functioning naturally when you're an aging man. And ED is not indicative of a broken system as mtm believes; it's called getting older. You could just as easily argue that "Viagra is designed to prevent the body from functioning naturally, that is, losing erectile function as you age."
Anyway, I would agree that the two are still qualitatively very different medications, but come on. How is preventing a normal function any less "natural" than restoring a normal function after its expiration date? Answer: it's not. And if we're not using "natural" as an explanation for why Viagra should be covered while birth control doesn't need to be, then that leaves us mostly with the preventative/restorative distinction. But seeing as an entire array of preventative medications are covered by health insurance, than that leads me to believe that it's discrimination, plain and simple.
*ahem*... "then" not "than".
:)
Well, of course birth control isn't used to regulate problems! It's only used by whores, you know. Whorey whores.
I like how you think, Tofu!
Because, of course, no one has ever used birth control for any purpose other than preventing pregnancy. Duh. Or to prevent the contraction of STDs. Or is that supposedly an interference with "natural processes" as well? Because only whores and dirty gay people get AIDS? Would it even surprise me if this was ACTUALLY their argument? Not a bit, judging by the idiocy the post has outlined here.
That point aside, even if there were no other uses for contraceptives, I fail to see how the argument that you are interrupting "natural processes" is even valid given the world we live in today. Aside from Tofu's awesome points, I would add that we live in a world where we violate the way nature "intended" things to be every single day in hundreds of ways. It's horribly inconsistent of them to care so much about this but not about other things. Actually, oh wait... it's not inconsistent at all; in fact, they consistently care ONLY when it comes to regulating women's bodies.
Great post!
I also think it is ridiculous that he says this is too sensitive a topic to discuss when interviewed, but thinks it is appropriate to make rape jokes at fundraisers. Come on, birth control is more sensitive than rape?
*laughs* Birth control does not "break a perfectly working system". It's more like pushing a computer's mute button. The rest of the computer will work perfectly fine, and the speakers will be a-ok as long as you keep an eye on it.
if birth control is not a health care product, then why do we have to get PRESCRIPTIONS from DOCTORS to get it?
That the highest members of the media and politics have the gall to say stuff like these idiots in the comment section (remarkable the stuff people will write in responses to articles...you think, "They're smart enough to READ the article at a 'liberal rag' like the Times", but then they write something insane and mega-stupid)...
It shouldn't surprise me, but if nothing else, it deeply, deeply saddens and FRIGHTENS me and pisses me off to no end.
I second everyone who said it--it is at best a grotesque f*cking joke that these (men, most likely) people have the gall to say Viagra is treating a "defect" and thus they have a right to Viagra in a way those who seek BC do not....they have as much of a "right" to get your old and/or non-functioning dick up as I have to avoid getting knocked up/becoming ill due to a condition that is treated with hormones, etc...
IDIOTS! Ugh! And these are our policymakers! What a nightmare.
"Contraceptives are designed to prevent the body from functioning naturally"
This is the lamest argument I've heard yet.
ANY type of medical treatment prevents the body from functioning normally.
When someone gets hit by a car and a paramedic stops their bleeding, they are interfereing with the way the body naturally bleeds to death after a severe trauma.
Allowing a child to use a bandaid on a skinned knee could be preventing their body from getting an infection and dying a prolonged, horrible, painful death How can we allow the use of bandaids after knowing how they may interfere with the nature of the human body?
What drives me crazy is that from a purely economic standpoint, paying for birth control keeps everyone else's costs down. The cost of pregnancy (wanted or not) is HUGE, the cost of labor is HUGE. The costs of my pregnancy are tacked onto your insurance costs.
I also feel that contraceptives sort of parallel vaccines. Getting the chicken pox is natural, and most people survive it, but not everyone does, and the cost of the vaccine is lower than the cost of the doctor visits for chicken pox. Birth control is a vaccine against the risk of gestational diabetes, preeclampsia, ectopic pregnancy, miscarriage, and any other number of medical problems.
That may be a convoluted parallel, but this stuff just pisses me off. What pisses me off even more is how Carly Fiorini is out there representing McCain and hinting that he is better on women's issues than he is. I guess lying is the new feminism.
WowCabbage, you totally just made my day.
Actually Mama Mia, covering vaccinations is a beautiful parallel.
Look. Above all this is a public health issue. The benefits for society as a whole of covering oral contraceptive far outweighs the benefits and risks to the individual.
As far as mechanism of action of drugs and whether or not pregnancy is a condition or whatever is totally irrelevant.
It's the same reasoning behind fluoridating the water supply and putting sealants on kid's teeth. Yep 99.9% of all interventions have some risk, but sometimes the benefits are just too huge to ignore.
Or shall we let kid's teeth rot the natural way?
And as far as the last piece of bullshit about "women can choose other birth control methods", how about looking at what the data says?
Over the last 40 or so years oral contraception has indeed proven to be the Easiest, Safest and Most Reliable method for women to use, AND it has consistently demonstrated superiority and acceptability of use over other alternatives.
So for anyone to ignore this kind of data and reasoning is doing so purely based on emotions and not logic.
ps. Fighting fire with fire = Priceless (* some restriction may apply :))