As Mother Mags so wonderfully chronicled on Tuesday, Arizona has gone beyond batshit crazy in its invasive, humiliating, infantilizing, and punitive anti-woman laws. Not only do women seeking an abortion have to undergo a forced ultrasound, it's now OK for doctors to lie to women about about the health status of their fetus if they (the doctor) believe that information may lead the woman to choose to abort that fetus. Also, employers can discriminated against women who are using birth control for reasons of actually preventing birth. If you haven't read Mother Mag's diary yet, please do. The details are chilling.
thereisnospoon today has posted some thought-provoking Bilble-based proposals that Arizona might also consider. I'm no Bible expert, so I'm just going to propose a few straight forward tit-for-tat laws I'd like to see enacted to turn the tables on men and give them a taste of their own medicine*. Please join me over the fancy squiggly.
New law #1: Employers do not have to provide insurance coverage for unmarried men seeking treatment for erectile dysfunction. If assisting an employee to have sex outside of "traditional" one man/ one woman marriage violates an employer's religious beliefs, that employer is not mandated to provide coverage for that activity.
Further (and this is equally as important), married men seeking coverage for erectile dysfunction must provide a written note from their wives stating that they are aware their husband is taking (or seeking to take) ED drugs. An employer has the right to be absolutely sure that they are not enabling an employee to engage in extramarital sex.
New law #2: Doctors may lie or withhold information to men about their health if they believe that information will lead a patient to use erectile dysfunction drugs for reasons that violate the doctor's religious beliefs, in particular sex outside of "traditional" one man/ one woman marriage. This includes single men, gay men, or men who are (or might be) engaging in extramarital affairs.
Sure, a man can go to a another doctor to get a second opinion, but he will have to take the time and expense to do it. It's a small, small fraction of the punitive, invasive, and medically unnecessary time and expense women are forced to endure for their reproductive health care needs in most places of this country.
In sum: an employer will have as much right-nay, moral responsibility-to root through and declare judgment on the most personal medical issues of their male employees as they do of their female employees.
Yes.
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*I am quite aware that is was a female legislator who was the mouthpiece for these most recent anti-woman laws in AZ. I have some very strong thoughts about why some women engage in their own oppression, but I'm not going to get into that here.