I hate- HATE- to agree with a conservative Texas Republican, but I have to say “You go, b-yotch!” to Texas Rep. Ray Allen:
In Texas, the state where it’s legal to execute the mentally retarded and where Culture of Life President Dubya never once worked to stop an execution while governor, more than 200 registered sex offenders have received Viagra at taxpayer expense article. Holy Fuck… how the hell did this just hit the news?
Well that’s good.
When I was a social worker for a large non-profit mental health organization I knew a male hypochondriac who received PMS medication at taxpayer expense (he “caught” PMS from his girlfriend), I knew a 60 year old woman who continued to take birth control “just to be safe”, and several men who received hypodermically self-administered erectile disfunction medications to help them masturbate, and all of this was at taxpayer expense. I also knew people who worked two and three jobs and couldn’t afford hormone therapy following a hysterectomy, people who couldn’t be treated for major burn scars (“cosmetic only”, it was ruled) and people who couldn’t even afford o.t.c. Pepto Bismol to help their ulcers, all because they were trapped in the “earn too little to live but too much for Medicaid” window. But this one is I think the winner.
Are we talking the big, worst of the worst, violent rapists and child molestors? Or just the 18 year old who had sex with his 15 year old girlfriend, or the drunk who got caught peeing behind the local Kmart?
Rapists and child molesters should be entitled to the same health care that anyone else gets. If that includes pills to faciliate a (legal) sexual relationship, then so be it.
Released sex offenders (those not on parole or on chemical castration as part of their release conditions, at least) should have the same rights, including access to medicaid, as any other American. If we’re going to offer Viagra to anyone via medicaid, that means everyone who needs it (as determined by a prescribing physician) and qualifies for medicaid should get it.
Witholding medical treatment for moral reasons is a slippery slope. One that points directly towards not offering rape victims birth control and restricting access to abortions.
Now, offering Viagra at all at public costs is also a contentious issue, I understand. No one has ever died for lack of an erection. But if anyone gets it, released criminals should also get it.
Yeah, this issue seems manufactured by some TX politician to get a rise out of people and get his name in the papers. Many felons are on state health programs, and many of these programs cover viagra, thus the state pays for viagra for some crooks. Meh. It’s only scandelous if its phrased in the same sort of way as in the thread title.
So if a person who has been convicted of child molestation serves his sentence, is released back into the community, and uses state supplied viagra to wank to kiddie porn, you’re okay with that? And you see no danger that a rapist may use Viagra to commit a sex crime?
Heh. Some of my patients have hit me up for Viagra. And I work only with inmates in a maximum-security prison!
I’m pretty damn liberal, but I have no problem at all with special codicils of law excluding classes of medication, which neither preserve health nor life, so that sex offenders can’t get them.
To me, it’s a no-brainer. As a condition of release for sex offenders, tacking on a stipulation that they don’t use sexual performance-enhancing drugs should be a standard rider. Once they’re off community supervision (often in 10 or 20 years) then perhaps the stipulation can be dropped.
It’s the same as requiring absolute sobriety for alcoholics out on parole. The deal was “we’ll let you out of prison on parole if you abstain from alcohol. Drink alcohol, and you’re going back in prison”.
Don’t blame the man from stealing a page from Senator Schumer’s play book - We up here in the Empire State discovered it first. In an amazingly quick timeline:
The solution is to stop Medicaid payments for Viagra entirely…sex offender or not. What’s next; subsidies for roses and dinner at a nice quiet little restaurant in a secluded, candlelit booth?
Why should the taxpayesr pay for what is (essentially) a recreational drug? The insane idiots who write these prescriptions ought to have their heads examined. Since when is somebody on public assistance entitled to get wood?
I think ex-junkies ought to get oxycontin!
Isn’t viagra a fertility drug? If so, do you think it’s reasonable for the state to forbid all fertility treatment to released sex offenders? (The first question isn’t rhetorical! I don’t know much about, er, non-recreational uses of Viagra.)
Viagra’s only indication is for improving erectile capacity. If a guy can ejaculate with viagra, he probably can without it too. Not well enough to successfully fertilize thru intercourse? Well then collect the semen and use artificial insemination.
Besides, I don’t believe medicaid covers fertility treatments in the first place.
Only as much as I have with someone using kiddie porn with Viagra he bought on his own dime. Or one who doesn’t need viagra at all. Which I suspect is most reoffending sex criminals.
The government has no business telling a person that they can’t take a duly prescribed medication for a recognized medical disorder. None. If anyone can get viagra on the government’s dime, then released convicts should as well.
What, released convicts don’t have to follow the conditions of their release? If they weren’t going to adhere to the conditions, they should have opted to stay in prison and serve their entire terms.
Most convicts get sentenced to “X” amount of time in prison, and “Y” amount of time under supervision, where they must adhere to certain rules or return to prison to serve out that “Y” amount of time. And often those rules are things that are not illegal for someone who’s not a felon or a sex offender to do. So it goes.
Freedom to choose is a wonderful thing, man. Choose to follow the conditions of the release, and the felon gets to stay out.