Rush Limbaugh did the conservative cause no favors by calling Sandra Fluke a slut and a prostitute and the like.
He should’ve stuck to the issues at hand and avoided the name-calling.
Rush Limbaugh is an entertainer and entertainers sometimes go over the top. One should not expect him to be as thoughtful as George Will or Dennis Prager.
If you want to make yourself the poster child for demanding that a church be forced to go against its sacred teachings to give you free birth control, you should be prepared for some blowback.
This has nothing to do with “silencing women.” A man who advocated the same thing would’ve received similar treatment.
Last week Sandra Fluke, a student at Georgetown University Law Center, went to Congress looking for a handout. She wants free birth-control pills, and she wants the federal government to make her Catholic school give them to her.
I’m a graduate of Georgetown Law and former chief counsel of the House Subcommittee on the Constitution. Based on her testimony, I wonder how much Ms. Fluke really knows about the university or the Constitution.
…In her testimony, Ms. Fluke claimed that, “Without insurance coverage, contraception, as you know, can cost a woman over $3,000 during law school.” That’s $1,000 per year. But an employee at a Target pharmacy near the university told the Weekly Standard last week that one month’s worth of generic oral contraceptives is $9 per month. “That’s the price without insurance,” the employee said. (It’s also $9 per month at Wal-Mart.)
…Ms. Fluke’s crusade for reproductive justice is simply a demand that a Catholic institution pay for drugs that make it possible for her to have sex without getting pregnant. It’s nothing grander or nobler than that. Georgetown’s refusal to do so does not mean she has to have less sex, only that she has to take financial responsibility for it herself.
Should Ms. Fluke give up a cup or two of coffee at Starbucks each month to pay for her birth control, or should Georgetown give up its religion? Even a first-year law student should know where the Constitution comes down on that.
