Whining N.O.W. Hypocrites
And Their Duplicitous Media Coconspirators
June 12, 2001 is surely a benchmark day in the feminist memorial calendar.
With self-righteous glee, the New York Times reported:
In the first court ruling on the issue of gender equity in drug coverage, a federal judge in Seattle said yesterday that the Bartell Drug Company, a family-owned drugstore chain, discriminated against women when it excluded prescription contraceptives from its employee health plan.
The class-action lawsuit, filed last July by Jennifer Erickson, a 27-year-old pharmacist at Bartell, said the health insurance coverage violated the Pregnancy Discrimination Act by paying for all the basic health care needs of male employees while leaving female employees to pay for contraception.
Federal District judge Robert S. Lasnik had a breakthrough revelation when he noted that, “Male and female employees have different sex-based disability and health care needs….”
The inspired judge further informed the world, “…that only women can get pregnant, bear children or use prescription contraception."
Gadzooks, this judge is really astute.
In a final stroke of judicial competence, judge Lasnik pontificated, “The court finds that Bartell's (the employer being sued) prescription drug plan discriminates against Bartell's female employees by providing less complete coverage than that offered to male employees. Although the plan covers almost all drugs and devices used by men, the exclusion of prescription contraceptives creates a gaping hole in the coverage offered to female employees, leaving a fundamental and immediate health care need uncovered.”
Birth control a “fundamental and immediate health care need”? How curious….
At least the New York Times shed some truth on this story unlike NBC’s “Today Show” or ABC’s “Good Morning America”.
To their credit, the Times informed the reader that Ms. Erickson’s legal action was a, “class-action lawsuit” and that Ms. Erickson’s attorney was, “Roberta Riley, of Planned Parenthood of Western Washington.”
When the effervescent and giggly Ms. Erickson and her attorney, Ms. Riley, were interviewed on the “Today” and “Good Morning America” shows there was no mention made of the fact that Lawyer Riley is a “bought and paid for” tool of Planned Parenthood.
To the contrary, Maria Shriver of “Today” and Diane Sawyer of “Good Morning America” portrayed Ms. Erickson as a discriminated-against victim of a large corporation who singularly retained legal counsel and battled Goliath.
Not once was the viewing public informed that this was a class-action lawsuit engineered by Planned Parenthood and that Ms. Erickson was simply a stand-in character for the greater goals of Feminism.
Both Shriver and Sawyer projected the story as a hell-bent mission to urge the contraceptive using women of America to pursue their employers, by whatever means, to obtain insurance coverage for their birth-control prescriptions. Judge Lasnik’s ruling was touted as a fiery sword of sexual liberation that women could use to ignite the cause of equality nationwide.
Once again, the mission of the broadcast media was not to impartially inform. Rather, the media luminaries acted in their roles as expediters of the Liberal Dogma and tentacles of its agents.
A classic argument for the “right” to prescription birth control insurance coverage is the comparison to coverage for Viagra. Men receive compensation for Viagra therefore; women should receive compensation for birth control. Otherwise, there is discrimination.
In this classically flawed and irrational comparison, there is always a failure (or lack of honesty) to clarify that Viagra helps return normal human function to males whereas birth control impedes normal human function in females. Where Viagra repairs, birth control fractures.
This is just another instance of the feminist “Me, Myself & I” agenda. Whine…Whine…Whine….
It is consistent with the Feminist movement to place their agenda before all others despite any rational prioritization based on equity.
While women’s health is a never-ending sage of top priority needs, male health is, to the feminist, an afterthought.
America is saturated on a daily basis with awareness campaigns, legislation and news coverage of feminist issues. First among these is breast cancer.
Taking 1997 as a base year with thorough statistical data, 44,190 women died from breast cancer. A truly terrible toll.
In the same year, 1997, the funding for breast cancer research was $332.9 million.
The good news is that the mortality rate from breast cancer was declining in 1997.
Yet, the call for additional funding for breast cancer research and awareness is, to the present day, unrelenting.
In 1997, 41,800 men died from prostate cancer.
In 1997, the funding for prostate cancer research was $74 million.
With $332.9 million in funding for breast cancer research versus $74 million in funding for prostate cancer research, society and the special interests are making a male life about 1/5 as valuable a female.
Consider the effects of these two cancers on their survivors.
The worst-case treatment for breast cancer is a radical mastectomy and chemo/radiation therapy. For the survivor, this equates to horrible, yet mostly repairable, disfigurement and a loss of the ability to breast-feed.
The standard treatment for a prostate cancer survivor is the equivalent of castration either by radiation, medication or surgical orchiectomy. All of these procedures achieve the desired effect of impeding testosterone production. The consequence of which has a very high probability of creating sexual dysfunction.
None of this should minimize the horrible impact that breast cancer has on its victims. It should however highlight and create awareness about the non-trendy killer, prostate cancer, and the devastation it wreaks upon the male population.
An extremely high percentage of Viagra recipients are prostate cancer survivors. Consequently, Viagra is prescribed in an effort to restore normal male function to these cancer victims.
An extremely high percentage of women who take prescription birth control are doing so in an effort to impede normal human function so that the recipient may enhance the pleasures of risk-free recreational sex.
To equate the prescribing of Viagra with the prescribing of female birth control is not only irrational but also, selfish.
More accurately, Viagra should be compared to post-mastectomy reconstructive surgery. It tries to restore what the cancer has robbed.
But don’t hold your breath waiting for the Liberal media dogmatists like Maria or Diane to ever tell that truth. The level playing field of truth is not part of the feminist agenda. That would require more than hysteria and emotion…it would demand truth and rationality.
In a cancer research world where the feminist interests are content to consume 425% more resources than those allocated to prostate cancer and still demand more…should any of this surprise you?
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