Boxer: Nelson Amendment Wouldn't Require Men To Purchase Riders For Viagra

Boxer: Nelson Amendment Wouldn't Require Men To Purchase Riders For Viagra

Monday, during the opening rounds of debate on Sen. Ben Nelson's (D-Neb.) proposed amendment to prohibit any federal funding of abortion, Sen. Barbara Boxer (D-Calif.) hit "the men who have brought us this" where it hurts.

Boxer likened a measure in the Nelson Amendment that would force women to purchase special abortion riders to a theoretical yet unimaginable measure -- requiring men to purchase a special rider for a Viagra prescription.

BOXER: The men who have brought us this don't single out a procedure that's 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. There's nothing in this amendment that says if a man some days wants to buy Viagra, for example, that his pharmaceutical coverage cannot cover it, that he has to buy a rider. I wouldn't support that. And they shouldn't support going after a woman using her own private funds for her reproductive health care. 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 that could be accessed? No, I don't support that. I support a man's privacy, just as I support a woman's privacy.

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