Time to Institute the Random Penis Swabs
This is the panel Darrell Issa had today on whether women should have access to birth control as part of their health care.
Five penis creatures testifying about whether vagina monsters should be able to control their own vaginas.
Issa said he had only men for religious reasons. Apparently, Issa doesn’t believe women faith leaders are really faith leaders.
Sorry. I mean “vagina monster faith leaders.”
What’s missing from this entire discussion is that men, too, can use birth control–like condoms. And the logic of these penis creature faith leaders is that employers should be able to control whether or not employees spend money on birth control, period. Condoms, like the pill, are generally not free.
So shouldn’t these penis creatures be worried about their penis creature employees spending money on condoms, in the same way they claim to be concerned that their vagina monster employees use their compensation to buy the pill?
The logical extension of the argument of these faith leaders is that religious employers also ought to be able to make sure their male employees aren’t using their compensation to buy condoms, either. So I suggest they impose random penis swab tests to check for latex residue, just to make sure their employees haven’t been donning little rain coats on their free time.
That’s freedom of religion, right, the freedom to intrude in employees’ private life to police their actions?
Line up, gentlemen, it’s time for your employer to check your dick to make sure it hasn’t been using birth control.
It’s been done before: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Sa-HGeoum2w
“Please, can we call it a tallywhacker?”
i attended a talk that was supposed to be about the Supreme Court but the “right side of the aisle” Panelist kept bringing every question back to abortion and how it was in the best interests of society and the health of families for the State to control women’s health care choices blah blah blah.
during the Q&A a woman noted that as evidence increasingly shows aging fathers’ sperm can lead to birth defects, it would then be in society’s best interest to require men over a certain age – like the panelist – to be sterilized. Mr. Right-Side did the eye roll & snort of derision as if this was the most absurd thing he had ever heard. “do as i say…”
after Obama handing women’s health care decisions over to Bart Stupak, i don’t for moment underestimate the ability for the circus currently going on in D.C. to have the potential to lead to an outcome further restricting women’s healthcare.
we have to keep the ridicule on high, and Obama and the feckless Dems on notice that our bodies are not open to negotiation.
’nuff said !
The craziest thing about this subject is that virtually all of these penises have, or do, use birth control.(Depending on the age of their cooperating vagina). I would argue that not a single one of these men at the hearing are actually against birth control. I would also imagine that most of them are not in the least religious.
So the question becomes, why have they chosen to talk about it? Is it a titillating thing to talk about in an otherwise boring work day?
Someone needs to interview all of their wives and daughters!
@rosalind:
That was a good point. Too bad the guy didn’t quite get it.
The anti-abortion people are as limited in their views as the anti-immigration people: everything that’s wrong is due to Their Favorite Demonized Action. Even if it isn’t really. (There was someone at the Times this morning doing the ‘immigrants are bad’ routine in comments on the story about the architect whose house burned down. (The architect added outdoor fireplaces to the house, indoors, after the inspections were done. And someone was complaining about that, too.))
Marcy,
Does the new health care law pay for vasectomies?
Just asking.
Does it pay for venereal disease treatment?
Just asking?
Does it pay for Viagra?
Does it pay for AIDS treatment?
Does it pay for male impotency treatment?
How do we look up the answers to these questions?
@bittersweet:
It’s something else they can try to use against the Democrats next fall.
I wonder what the penis-people would do if they were told their insurance companies won’t pay for V*agra, because it promotes immoral activity….
It sure has been a long, strange trip from here* to this.
_____________
*Photo of 1948 Republican party billboard from the archive of Charles “Teenie” Harris; hat-tip to Chicago Reader‘s Sam Worley.
Why does “Separation of Church and State” suddenly mean that the Church has veto power over US laws? They should not even be in the room.
The congress passes laws, the Churches follow them! That, is “Separation of Church and State”!
Swab away!
So glad I had access to treatment for my polycystic ovarian syndrome in the form of oral birth control.
I was able to avoid infertility and my husband and I were able to have children.
rather than “control their own vaginas”, i would say,
“control their own fertility”.
given the state of our reproductive science, there is no legitimate reason why the accident of sexual selection at conception, coupled with the biological imperative to reproduce our species,
should force a woman to alter her life plans due to an unintended pregnancy.
in my extended family, about 1940, an exceptionally intellectually gifted young woman was offered a full, four-year undergraduate scholarship in biology to one of the nation’s premier science schools.
during a summer in washington, d.c. following her high school graduation, she became pregnant. her intellectual gifts never left her, but her professional life came to focus real-property management (at which she was quite successful).