web_tb_hillcrest_genl_5.15.13

The Penis Subcommittee

How to even out the field

by Published: Aug 1, 2012

On August 1, 2012, a law went into effect that man­dated pri­vate insur­ance com­pa­nies cover birth con­trol and pre­ven­ta­tive care for women. Controversy ensues as the pop­u­lous fer­vently debates the topic of cov­er­ing med­ical care for mil­lions of women.

I’m for the man­date. My birth con­trol costs $60 a month. I can’t use the cheap stuff, or the generic stuff. My girl parts aren’t all in work­ing order, and the spe­cific pill I’ve been using for the past four years keeps them ship-shape and on sched­ule. We won’t go into the years of copi­ous pain, heavy bleed­ing (imag­ine the scene from The Shining when the ele­va­tor doors open) cysts, irreg­u­lar­ity or other “nasty, gross things” because of one part of this audi­ence who doesn’t want to hear it: the men. Not all men, but from the con­ver­sa­tions I’ve read the men in gen­eral have no idea what they’re talk­ing about.

The chief com­plaint is that “it’s a hand­out” and sud­denly the gov­ern­ment is “just giv­ing it to whores.” I also keep read­ing that “it’s stomp­ing on reli­gious free­dom.” Well, maybe we should stop giv­ing men the hand­outs they get too? That’ll even it out. No more Viagra. No more prostate exams or phys­i­cals. No more vasec­tomies. Family plan­ning is anti-religious, but shov­ing a fin­ger up a man’s rec­tum to screen for can­cer is com­pletely acceptable.

Maybe the solu­tion to this is writ­ing to the con­gress­women form­ing The Penis Subcommittee. I If men can defund Planned Parenthood, women should defund all pre­ven­ta­tive and repro­duc­tive care for men as well. Maybe we should also man­date that men can­not ejac­u­late more than once in a 20 week period because it would hurt their sperm count. Then we can send the Penis Police to each and every doctor’s visit to inform them of options other than beat­ing their meat, and that, have they thought of not doing it at all? After that, we can man­date that the doc­tor has to shove a steel rod up their ure­thra so they can see an ultra sound image of their testes and know what dam­age they’re caus­ing by wast­ing sperm through mas­tur­ba­tion or sex that doesn’t cause pregnancy.

I have a per­sonal feel­ing that the rea­son this debate exists at all is fear. The peo­ple against this want women to get knocked up so they’ll shut up. Women won their inde­pen­dence and free­doms through years of chau­vin­ist and sex­ist ideals. We’re still fight­ing. We have the higher grades, the big­ger pres­ence in the work­force, and yet the Lily Ledbetter law was only passed just last year. I’m not a fem­i­nist; I’m an equal-ist. I believe I can do any­thing a man can do, and some­times bet­ter. I believe I have the right to have the same access to health­care that he does. I think the peo­ple that are fight­ing against these man­dates, against birth con­trol and women’s rights are afraid they’ll be the ones sent to the kitchen to make me a sammich.

If the women of today don’t stand up for what our Mothers and Grandmothers fought for we will lose it all. Write to con­gress, and call them too. Vote. Make a dif­fer­ence, not a detri­ment. I have a vagina. There are many like it, but this one is mine. My vagina is my best friend, it cre­ates life. I must respect it, as I respect life. Without me, my vagina is pow­er­less, with­out my rights, I am pow­er­less. I must swear before my faith and my sex that I will do every­thing in my power to defend my vagina and defend my rights.

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  • Rosemary Anger

    Sammich…says it all

  • http://www.facebook.com/kevinrbreen Kevin R Breen

    I agree that birth con­trol is great and that women should have access to it. And I think that the Catholic insur­ance plans should at least cover birth con­trol pills when they are needed for med­ical rea­sons. But there are some fal­lac­ies in this arti­cle that I feel I must point out.

    First, I find it strange that you’re blam­ing “the men” for this. Scientific polls have found oppo­si­tion to the man­date among men and women to be vir­tu­ally identical.

    “The chief com­plaint is that ‘it’s a hand­out’ and sud­denly the gov­ern­ment is ‘just giv­ing it to whores.’”
    This is not the chief com­plaint. Googling the terms reveals that almost none of the mandate’s opposers call it a hand-out. In fact, most instances of the term “hand-out” occur in pro-mandate arti­cles like this one, mis­char­ac­ter­iz­ing the oppo­si­tion. Clowns like Rush Limbaugh some­times ven­ture in to “whore” ter­ri­tory to illicit con­tro­versy, but no seri­ous per­son is claim­ing any­thing like this.

    The actual chief com­plaint is that the man­date is an affront to lib­erty. Private indi­vid­u­als who have (idi­otic, but gen­uine) moral objec­tions to birth con­trol have the right to cre­ate pri­vate insur­ance plans that do not cover birth con­trol, and other pri­vate indi­vid­u­als should be allowed to freely choose whether or not they want that insur­ance plan, or if they’d rather have one that does cover birth con­trol. This man­date does not “give” any­one any­thing; it merely takes away the right of the indi­vid­ual to choose a plan that doesn’t cover birth con­trol if they wish.

    “Well, maybe we should stop giv­ing men the hand­outs they get too? That’ll even it out. No more Viagra. No more prostate exams or phys­i­cals.“
    These things are com­pletely irrel­e­vant because they have noth­ing to do with birth con­trol. Catholic insur­ance plans do cover female analogs, such as gyne­co­log­i­cal exams, breast can­cer treat­ment, etc..

    “No more vasec­tomies.“
    The insur­ance plans you’re com­plain­ing about do not cover vasec­tomies. And the guide­lines in the man­date only apply to women, so vasec­tomies still aren’t covered.

    “The peo­ple against this want women to get knocked up so they’ll shut up.“
    This is offen­sive as it is incor­rect. Again, men and women oppose this equally. People against this believe that birth con­trol is morally abhor­rent and don’t want to be forced to pay for it, whether it is for men or women.

  • Dan Hamilton

    This issue boils down to the fact that Obama’s health care law doesn’t go far enough. We’re still deal­ing with insur­ance com­pa­nies and the debate about what they should have to cover, instead of actual get­ting to the health care part. This con­ver­sa­tion wouldn’t be nec­es­sary if we had a truly uni­ver­sal system.

    To Kevin’s point, let’s not pre­tend that allow­ing insur­ance com­pa­nies to deny women birth con­trol is an enhance­ment of lib­erty. I find this line of thought wor­ri­some. It’s eerily rem­i­nis­cent of the idea that every­one should have free­dom and rights includ­ing the right over some­one else’s actions if the oppor­tu­nity exists. We need to move beyond this type of think­ing. You can’t allow insur­ance com­pa­nies to be free to act how they want and also expect indi­vid­u­als to have free­dom of access to health­care, the two are com­pet­ing ideas.

    • http://www.facebook.com/kevinrbreen Kevin R Breen

      To be clear, you’re say­ing that NOT forc­ing peo­ple in insur­ance com­pa­nies to pay for things that con­flict with their reli­gious beliefs is an rem­i­nis­cent of the idea that peo­ple have rights over other peo­ples’ actions?

      • Dan Hamilton

        No, you’re refer­ring to the rela­tion­ship between the gov­ern­ment and the insur­ance com­pany. I’m refer­ring to the rela­tion­ship between the insur­ance com­pany and the indi­vid­ual. The two are related, but different.

        • http://www.facebook.com/kevinrbreen Kevin R Breen

          I am refer­ring to the rela­tion­ship between the insur­ance com­pany and the indi­vid­ual as well.
          I am say­ing that insur­ance com­pa­nies design poli­cies that cover cer­tain things and don’t cover other things, just as gro­cery stores stock some items and not oth­ers. If a con­sumer wants an insur­ance pol­icy that cov­ers birth con­trol, but Company A doesn’t offer birth con­trol cov­er­age, the con­sumer is free to go to Company B. Just as a con­sumer who wants water­melon, but can’t find any at Supermarket A, is wel­come to shop at Supermarket B instead.

  • Gump

    You can’t afford it, there­fore some­one else should pay for it—what hap­pens when you can’t afford the light fix­ture in your house, should some­one else pay for it? I don’t think that forc­ing oth­ers to pay for your bed­room needs is the role our gov­ern­ment should take.