During the last stages of the process of pushing the healthcare reform bill into law, the GOP filed a number of amendments in Congress. This was a device. If any amendment succeeded, the bill had to be sent back to the House. So there were no real debates. A party-line vote saw the Democrats reject all the GOP’s amendments and the bill was duly signed into law. But one of the amendments does deserve a little discussion. Sen. Tom Coburn proposed a formal limit on the right of convicted sex offenders to receive any erectile dysfunction drug through the new insurance plans. He found it morally unacceptable that taxpayers should pay for these drugs to be given to this particular group of offenders. OK, so here come the two opposing views:

Sex offenders are like animals. They have given up any claim to human rights. The cheapest solution would be to impose the death penalty. Locking them up for years keeps the public safe. If we are forced to let them out of prison, castration would prevent them from committing some crimes (but not others).

Sex offenders are human beings. The state uses prison to punish and rehabilitate. When offenders have paid their debt to society, they are released and entitled to continue their lives.

If Sen. Coburn is worried about using taxpayers’ money to benefit sex offenders, how does this affect their lives in prison. We spend millions of dollars giving them a place to live, food to keep them alive, television to keep them in touch with the world, sports equipment to keep them fit, and so on. If they fall ill, there’s treatment at the taxpayers’ expense. Surely, we should either let them live in the general prison population so the inmates can kill them, or give them only bread and water in a bare cell, refusing any medical treatment if they fall ill. The idea of spending money for them to be comfortable or saved from death at the taxpayers’ expense is immoral.

It’s a fact that, when released, offenders can buy cialis online using their own money. There are no checks into the identity of people who buy online. Indeed, online pharmacies make a feature of the confidential service they offer. Everyone’s privacy is protected. If Sen. Coburn’s amendment is to have any value, all mail must be opened and checked before it is delivered to registered sex offenders — no porn, no drugs. Every doctor in the US must be given access to a database of all the names being used by sex offenders. Like the no-fly lists, sex offenders must be refused prescriptions. Doctors must search the database before writing the prescription and, if you have the same name as a registered sex offender, you must prove who you are before getting your cialis. If a sex offender does get a prescription, his health insurance company must refuse to pay for it. Hey, why is it not a breach of the terms of probation or the licence for a sex offender to acquire or attempt to acquire cialis? That would make it easy to send them straight back to prison the moment they prove themselves a danger. No, this is all too complicated. Death. If not death, indefinite detention with no parole. That’s the easy answer if Sen. Coburn has his way. No more sex offending using drugs paid for by the state!