Read my latest story, "The All-Nighter", at 52|250.

I like the TV on for background noise while writing; for whatever reason, I find it less distracting than the radio. The other day, however, a snippet of a Cialis commercial caught my attention: women should not take or handles Cialis due to the risk of a specific birth defect. Shouldn’t that be women who are pregnant or who plan to become so? Granted, this isn’t much of a loss given that Cialis is a treatment for erectile dysfunction, but the generalization does reflect a broader attitude that can impact a woman’s health and freedom.

Treating women as pre-pregnant limits their access to needed medications. It means encouraging women to give up activities they enjoy simply because these activities might harm a potential fetus that may never exist. It means reducing the value of women to what their uteruses (and maybe their breasts) can produce. This pernicious attitude needs to be called out wherever it appears.

Related posts:

1. Are women writers now sexless?

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