Viagra vs. the pill

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You know what I am sick of?

Arguments for including the pill in health care plans because those plans cover Viagra.

Let me start off by saying this: I don't particularly think Viagra needs to be covered. I dont know the Church's position on it, but when we're talking about plans (such as for State of Illinois employees) that use my tax dollars, I'm a little wary of funding a drug that one can live happily and healthily without.

That said: The purpose of Viagra and related drugs is to correct a medical deficiency. If a man cannot acieve an erection, there is something biologically off with his body. Viagra (allegedly - I don't know too much about it) fixes that. The drug makes the man whole.

The purpose of the birth control pill is to violate the natural wholeness of a woman's body. A healthy pre-menopausal adult woman has a menstrual cycle wherein she ovulates once a month and her body gears up for a potential pregnancy. If this pegnancy is not achieved, her body expels the unfertilized egg and all of the biological materials that have accumulated in preparation. This is the normal, healthy, natural order of things. The pill takes this (quite beautiful) order and jams it up.

Men who take Viagra would not be able to have sex without it.

Women who take the pill are quite capable of having sex without it. It is in no way analogous to Vigara.

The purpose of the pill is to prevent the natural consequences of sexual intercourse to take place. The pill does not heal, it does not make whole, all it does is prevent pregnancy and abort any conceptions that mistakely occur. The logical consequence of accepting the pill as a "medicine" is to label pregnancy as a disease, which many proponents of birth control and abortion do.

This is most ironic, since the pill has so many side effects, and pregnancy is in fact so beneficial for the health of a woman.

So here we have a "medicine" that heals no illness, rights no wrong, compensates for no deficiency, and instead prevents one of the best things that can happen for a woman's body from taking place and also causes a host of side effecs which in the long run will cause the woman physical and emotional trauma (not to mention the monetary cost).

Let me again conclude, this is not a pro-Viagra post. I don't know what side-effects the big V has, I don't know if i's even morally licit. I only mention it because so many of the arguments for including birth control in health plans complained of unequal treatment by health plans that covered Viagara, but not the pill. They complained that health care providers were providing "reproductive freedom" to men but not to women. This assertion is completely false.

Viagra facilitates reproductive ability to men. The pill facilitates reproductive irresponsibility to women. Both groups are free to choose what they will.

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This page contains a single entry by Papa-Lu published on November 1, 2003 6:29 PM.

What would you say? was the previous entry in this blog.

Choosing without freedom is the next entry in this blog.

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