If women have to wait 24 hours in South Carolina to get an abortion, men should have to do the same before they can get Viagra or other drugs to help them have sex, according to a tongue-in-cheek proposal discussed Wednesday. Lawmakers cracked jokes about the bill, but sponsor Rep. Mia McLeod said it isn't a laughing matter, the AP reports. The Democrat said South Carolina's male- and Republican-dominated Legislature places restrictions on abortion they don't place on any other medical matter. "Government has no place making a decision for people when it comes to abortion—or erectile dysfunction," she said. McLeod's bill would require a 24-hour waiting period before an erectile dysfunction medicine could be picked up from the pharmacy, as well as require patients to get counseling on celibacy as a valid life choice, which mirror requirements of South Carolina's abortion law.
A patient would also have to get a sworn, notarized statement from his sexual partner saying he needed the medicine, which could bring up medical privacy issues. McLeod said she'd alter the bill to assign patients numbers like state health officials do with women who get abortions. Rep. Wendy Nanney doesn't think the bill is a laughing matter: "I think people are very callous and act like it is just a medical procedure and it is much more than that—you are taking a human life." A House subcommittee of all Democrats passed the bill; no one outside of lawmakers testified for or against the bill and it likely will not pass. McLeod said she decided to write it after Republicans insisted on a legislative investigation of Planned Parenthood that found few problems. "It's already done exactly what I wanted it to do—broaden the discussion and expose the hypocrisy," she noted. (Anesthesia is required in Utah abortions after 20 weeks.)
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