Sen. Barbara Boxer (D-Calif.) on the Senate floor on Monday compared a woman’s choice to have an abortion with a man’s choice to privacy when seeking a prescription for Viagra, a drug used to enhance sexual performance. Boxer made her remarks while speaking against an amendment to the Senate health care bill introduced by Sen. Ben Nelson (D-Neb.). Nelson’s amendment would prohibit federal funds from paying for any part of any health insurance plan that covers abortion.
“The men who have brought us this [amendment] don’t single out a procedure that is used by a man, or a drug that is used by a man, that involves his reproductive health care, and say they have to get a special rider,” Boxer said. “There is nothing in this amendment that says if a man some day wants to buy Viagra, for example, that his pharmaceutical coverage cannot cover it, that he has to buy a rider.”
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“I wouldn’t support that,” she said, “and they shouldn’t support going after a woman, using her own private funds for her reproductive health care,” Boxer said. “Is it fair to say to a man: ‘You’re going to have to buy a rider to buy Viagra and this will be public information?’”
“It could be accessed,” Boxer said. “No, I don’t support that. I support a man’s privacy just as I support a woman’s privacy. So it is very clear to me that this amendment would be the biggest rollback to a woman’s right to choose in decades.”
A vote on the Nelson-Hatch amendment is expected as early as today.
Contact: Penny Starr
Source: CNSNews.com
Publish Date: December 8, 2009
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