Ever feel like men, especially men in power, just don’t get what it’s like to be a woman? House Representative Mary Lou Marzian, a Democrat from Kentucky, thought it was time for a reality check on just how intrusive the state’s anti-abortion legislature really is. That’s why she proposed this bill that, if passed into law, would require men seeking treatment for erectile dysfunction to undergo a process similar to the state-mandated process required for women seeking an abortion in order to obtain Viagra and other common drugs used to treat the condition.
According to The New York Times, “Each man would be required to have two doctor visits, a signed-and-dated letter from his spouse providing consent and a sworn statement—delivered with his hand on a Bible—that he would use the drugs only to have sex with his spouse.” Sounds embarrassing, right? And like something no legislature of mostly men would ever agree to.
Rep. Marzian admits that the bill’s proposal is mostly symbolic, but she also explained in an interview with Reuters that her point in its proposal is “[To] illustrate how intrusive and ridiculous it is for elected officials to be inserting themselves into private and personal medical decisions.”
Rep. Marzian’s bill is making headlines in the aftermath of a bill signed into law by Kentucky Governor Matt Bevin just days ago requiring women to consult with a doctor 24 hours before undergoing an abortion. The bill’s passage was lauded by anti-abortion advocates as another barrier in preventing women’s access to freely make autonomous decisions about their reproductive health.
With 80 percent of the House population consisting of men, Representative Marzian wanted to make a point.
“I have found that men are very touchy about their sexual lives, and they think that is very personal,” she told the Times. “So I wanted to hit a chord that men could understand how it feels to have a politician say, ‘Well, you really don’t know enough; you really need some education about this because you just don’t know enough about your body; and we need to insert ourselves into your private life.'”
Rep. Marzian is just one of thousands of women fed up with the double standards and hypocrisy present in the policing of women’s health through government regulation, but she’s one of the few who has been successful in securing a national platform that has enabled her to make her message loud and clear.