Anti-choice bill sponsor in Minnesota: Viagra is a “wonderful drug” that “helps create life”

While Wisconsin’s new restrictions on tele-medicine abortions recently went into effect, Minnesota’s Democratic Governor sensibly vetoed a similar bill in my home state–but not before the bill’s sponsor sang the praises of that “wonderful drug” Viagra.

During debate on the bill a Democratic Senator asked the bill’s sponsor, Republican Sen. Paul Gazelka, why the abortion pill needed to be regulated but erectile dysfunction meds like Viagra do not. Gazelka responded that unlike RU-486, Viagra is a “wonderful drug” that “helps create life.” Robin Marty at RH Reality Check emailed the Senator to find out more about Gazelka’s love of Viagra. He explained:

Comparing Viagra to RU-486 was comparing apples and oranges or more like comparing life and death. Viagra is a wonderful medical advancement in that can help couples with sexual disfunction issues…it can even help in producing life. RU486 always destroys life by taking the life of the unborn child.

Honestly, anti-choicers’ willingness to claim that “creating life” is an absolute good is astounding to me–since I can’t imagine that most people see it that way. I mean, sure. Viagra is great and no doubt helps many couples in “producing life.” It also, of course, helps them have a happy, fulfilling sex life without producing life. And I’m pretty sure a whole lot of couples would find Viagra a lot less wonderful if it always produced life. Hence, birth control and abortion–two responsibilities that unfortunately tend to fall to women but couples benefit from immensely. Because in the real world–a place that is the polar opposite of the one in anti-choice politicians’ talking points–people not not have sex primarily to “create life.”

Really, only a dude who’s only ever had procreative sex could say something as stupid as BONERS=LIFE. The rest of us don’t believe every boner should end in a life, live in sensible fear that it might, and fight through absurd restrictions on our reproductive rights to ensure that it doesn’t. That is what “respecting the sanctity of life” really looks like. And it’s only thanks to women’s true appreciation for the enormity of “creating life” that dudes like Gazelka can continue to have God complexes about how their boners are the almighty bearers of life, and we can continue to have sex without having our lives ruined by a million little baby Gazelkas.

Gazelka declined to comment on whether he himself used the medication or would consider sponsoring legislation that would create a state database of the personal information of Viagra users. Obviously.