A group that supports health care coverage of contraception is calling for women to withhold sex from their partners between April 28 and May 5.
"This will help people understand that contraception is for women and men, because men enjoy the benefit of women making their own choices about when and if they want to get pregnant," Liberal Ladies who Lunch says on its website. "Once congress and insurance agencies agree to cover contraception, we will then resume having sex. Until then men will have to be content with their left hand."
On its Facebook page, the group charts a brief history of similar "strikes," starting with Aristophanes' ancient Greek play "Lysistrata," where women refuse to have sex until the end of the Peloponnesian War.
The proposal has attracted some negative Facebook reactions, according to The Daily Caller, which reports that an opponent of contraception coverage commented on the "irony of...ceasing sex in order to get free contraception."
But the movement may have also gotten some recent, if unofficial, support from the wife of Virginia State Del. David Albo (R-Fairfax Station). Albo says she turned him down in the bedroom due to his support for the state's transvaginal ultrasound bill.
Female lawmakers have found other ways to protest bills limiting contraception and abortion rights, including a slew of often-satirical legislation imposing similar rules on men.