Guest blogged by Ernest A. Canning
“When you let university administrators or other employers rather than women and their doctors dictate whose medical needs are legitimate and whose are not, a woman’s health takes a back seat to a bureaucracy focused on policing her body.” – Georgetown Univ. Law Student, Sandra Fluke
One unfortunate aspect of the firestorm surrounding Rush Limbaugh’s profoundly uninformed, deceptive and misogynistic vitriol and calls for accountability for the Rightwing radio blowhard, is that it has completely overshadowed the substance of Fluke’s testimony on the importance of access to prescription contraceptives to women’s health.
The Limbaugh firestorm has also overshadowed the fact that the American Taliban (aka the elected Tea Party House Republicans) prevented Fluke from testifying at a House Oversight Committee hearing, framed by the Republican majority as a hearing on “religious freedom”, because, as the Washington Post described, “she was not a member of the clergy.”
Indeed, while much is made of the fact that the first panel at the 2/16/12 House Oversight Committee examining an issue vital to women’s health was all-male, few have taken note that it was also all-clergy. In opening the hearing, Committee Chairman Darrell Issa (R-CA) announced: “Today, the committee will hear testimony from leaders of different faiths.”
Not only did the right-wing GOP House leaders fail to so much as recognize Fluke’s right to be heard, but, according to Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi (D-CA) (see video embedded in above-linked Washington Post article), they also refused to permit House Democrats to use the House Recording Studio as part of an effort to try and prevent the public from seeing and hearing Fluke’s testimony at all. Instead, Pelosi and the Democrats of the Democratic Steering Committee were forced to hold a separate, unofficial “forum”, in order to hear Fluke’s testimony.
The video of Fluke’s opening statement, the testimony that Republicans sought to prevent from being heard at all, is now posted below.
But it is the larger, arguably more disturbing constitutional ramifications of the actions of House Republicans that we’d like to take a moment to highlight on, as they have been almost entirely overlooked in this unnecessary brouhaha…
Disregarding the U.S. Constitution
“I keep hearing political candidates and pundits refer to religious folks as ‘people of faith,'” Brent Meeker wrote in a 3/4/12 letter to the editor of Los Angeles Times. “So I suggest that we atheists and agnostics be referred to as ‘people of evidence.'”
The First Amendment provides that Congress “shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion,” which, Thomas Jefferson wrote, was intended to build “a wall of separation of church and state.”
Ironically, the House Oversight Committee, chaired by Darrell Issa (R-CA), both gave recognition to and then seem to have immediately violated that separation in framing a hearing on a question vital to women’s health as: “Separation of Church and State: Has the Obama Administration Trampled on Freedom of Religion and Freedom of Conscience?”
Implicit in the Committee’s framing is the assumption that freedom to worship includes the right of religious employers and institutions to inject their religious beliefs into the personal medical decisions of female employees and students. That interference is especially troubling in cases like the one at Georgetown, where, Fluke testified, the university saw fit to intervene in such medical decisions even though that interference was opposed by 94% of students and even though it is the students themselves who pay for their own health insurance coverage, “completely unsubsidized by the university.”
The combination of the assumption that one person’s freedom to worship includes the right of one individual to inject his or her religious belief into the personal medical decisions of another, along with the House GOP’s determination that only members of the clergy should be heard on the matter, raises a disturbing question concerning the separation of church and state and an “establishment” of religion as a basis for legislative decision-making.
Article VI of the U.S. Constitution provides that there shall be “no religious test…required as a qualification to any office or public trust under the United States.”
While appearing as a witness before Congress is not equal to holding “office,” it is certainly a form of “public trust.” Yet, while the House GOP chose to insult women in this country by permitting an all-male panel to testify on a topic of keen interest to women, their “theologians only” policy is arguably as offensive to Constitutional conservatives.
In allowing only members of the clergy to offer testimony on mandating private insurers to cover women’s health issues, and whether such a mandate steps on issues of separation between church and state, Republicans may well have crossed a boundary made impermissible by both the First Amendment and Article VI of the Constitution by imposing a religious test (clergy membership) as a qualification to engage in the public trust of appearing as a Congressional witness. At the very least, that test appears to have smashed through the wall of separation of church and state.
To make matters worse, by attempting to prevent press coverage of Fluke’s testimony by depriving the minority party access to the House Recording Studio, the House GOP violated the First Amendment right of every U.S. citizen to be fully informed of the factual issues surrounding insurance coverage for contraceptives, so that citizens can make an informed decision as to whether those who supported the recently failed Blunt amendment (which would would have outlawed such a mandate) should be re-elected or voted out of office.
No relationship between cost for contraceptives and frequency of intercourse
As the content of Limbaugh’s misogynistic vitriol has received extensive coverage from both the MSM and alternative media, there is no need to recount them here. However, it may be useful to dispel some misconceptions created by Limbaugh’s statement that Fluke “was having so much sex she can’t afford the contraception.”
Setting aside the fact that Fluke did not utter one word about her personal sex life, Limbaugh’s remark reflects a profound ignorance that would have been dispelled had the House Oversight Committee called medical experts to address an issue of women’s health that is, by no means, limited to “freedom of religion.”
The cost of contraceptives has absolutely nothing to do with the frequency of intercourse. Ordinarily, a patient obtains a package of 28 oral contraceptive pills, which are to be taken daily. Even if she anticipates only having intercourse on a single occasion over the span of one month, a patient cannot save money by holding off until that day to take one. A failure to abide by a physician’s prescribed daily dose can produce “menstrual bleeding at irregular intervals, and the likelihood of pregnancy increases.”
Oral contraceptives used for more than pregnancy prevention
A particularly troubling feature that arises from framing an issue that so profoundly impacts women’s health as solely a question of religious freedom and then calling only clergy as witnesses — as opposed to physicians and medical experts — is that elected Congressional representatives may inject themselves into the matter without first acquiring an understanding of the health implications of their legislative decisions.
Pregnancy prevention provides only one of multiple medical reasons why contraceptives are prescribed. Other therapeutic options include “reduction in dysmenorrhea [menstrual pain] and menorrhagia [abnormally heavy and prolonged menstrual periods], iron-deficiency anemia, ectopic pregnancy, and PID [Pelvic Inflammatory Disease]…Oral contraceptives provide lasting reduction in the risk of two serious gynecologic malignancies — ovarian and endometrial cancer.”
This issue was central to Fluke’s academic Congressional presentation. She provided the ideal example — a 32-year old female Georgetown law student whose doctor prescribed oral contraceptives to prevent the development of a polycystic ovary.
Although Georgetown makes an exception for denial of coverage if oral contraceptives are provided for medical reasons unrelated to pregnancy prevention, they refused to accept the reason in this case — this despite the fact that the likelihood of pregnancy was minimized by the fact that the student was gay. The student developed an acute onset of severe pain and received an emergency hysterectomy because of a polycystic ovary — hence Fluke’s statement, quoted at this top of this article, about women’s health taking a backseat to bureaucratic policy.
Video containing entirety of Sandra Fluke’s opening statement follows…
Ernest A. Canning has been an active member of the California state bar since 1977. Mr. Canning has received both undergraduate and graduate degrees in political science as well as a juris doctor. He is also a Vietnam vet (4th Infantry, Central Highlands 1968). Follow him on Twitter: @Cann4ing.
I think we should be called “people of facts.”
Having not had to deal with women’s issues on a personal level, this whole discussion brings up a third concern- at least to someone looking at it from the outside. Why is it that medication is necessary for a woman to just live their lives? What did women do before contraceptives? How are women surviving who don’t have access to this medication? Having access when necessary is one thing, but it seems from the description in the article that if women are sexually active at all they are popping pills once a day. This may be irrelevant to Mr. Canning’s salient point, but it was his article that brought my attention to it. And those pills, if most sexually active women are taking them, is big money. And you know what the Supreme Court said about money. (Not that the religious institutions represented are any less moneyed.)
Michael G., I think you’re confusing things. There are uses of the pill for medical reasons unrelated to contraception. Before there was the pill, women with those conditions just suffered, and, in fact, some of them still do. Some of the conditions, like dysmenorrhea, range in severity from painful but manageable to debilitating, while others have far more serious consequences if left untreated.
Taking the pill for contraception, on the other hand, is not a given for sexually active women who don’t want to get pregnant. There are other ways of preventing pregnancy besides the pill, including Depo Provera shots, which you get once a month, IUDs, which get inserted and left there, and barriers (diaphragms and condoms), which get used when needed.
I am truly baffled as to precisely what it is that you are trying to say, Michael G @2.
To ask what women did before contraceptives is like asking what people did to avoid polio before the Salk vaccine?
As noted in the body of the article, physicians often prescribe oral contraceptives for a variety of health reasons. There is no reason why women should not have access to the benefits afforded by modern medicine.
Also, while I did not cover it because it goes beyond the scope of this article, in addition to daily oral contraceptives, there are emergency postcoital contraceptives, aka the morning after pill, but there is a question as to whether these are truly “contraceptive” or “contragestive” — “a drug that prevents the implantation of an [already fertilized] human embryo into the uterus.”
As to cost, Fluke testified that while attending law school (normally three years), a female student’s costs, absent insurance, could run as high as $3,000 — an estimate that is consistent with medical literature. She noted that one married female student had to stop purchasing contraceptives because she and her husband could not afford it.
Given that the tuition cost at Georgetown Univ. Law School is $23,432.50 per semester, I found Fluke’s testimony quite persuasive in that regard.
Finally, since you seem to attach some type of moral significance to the fact that a woman chooses to be sexually active, consider the amount that the couple in question has invested in the female student’s legal education, and then consider the impact an unwanted pregnancy would have on her ability to complete that education and upon the couple’s long-term goals both as a family and professionally.
Ernest, from a constitutional perspective, what is the goverment obligated to provide Ms. Fluke and to those for whom she as advocating? Note that “government provide” = “government mandate” in the context of my question.
Oh, one more question. How many times per day does Ms. Fluke or those for whom she is advocating, have sex? With a little help from Google, I see that I can buy a ten-pack of Trojan Ultra Ribbed Ecstasy Condoms for $12.99. Now if Ms. Fluke or those for whom she is advocating has sex once per day, the yearly cost is $474.14/year. That sounds pretty reasonable given the enjoyment she gets ($1.30/day!!) T-Mobile offers their basic cell-phone plan for $49.99/month ($599.88/yr). Not that using a cell phone is the same as having sex but I still wonder if you have any idea what cell-phone plan Ms. Fluke is on (or those for whom she is advocating). Does she ever eat at McDonalds? A Big Mac ranges from $3 – $4. What if she ate one every day?
Please understand that I realize having sex is not the same as using a cell phone (I am being redundant…forgive me) or eating a BIG MAC but I am trying to understand the magnitude of the dilemma Ms. Fluke (ATFWSIA) faces.
Crockett –
Are you as daft as you appear? Or just play that way on the Internets.
First question: Government doesn’t pay anything when private insurers are required to provide women’s health care, as in the issue at hand. Do you really not understand that?
Second question: It’s nice that you’d like to decide what type of medical services other private citizens should enjoy. I’d like to leave that to a woman and her doctor, however. Especially since she was paying for her own private insurance.
That said, clearly you have no clue about this issue and couldn’t even show the common courtesy of reaing the article you’re commenting on.
Ms. Fluke’s concern was not about her and not even about having sex. It had to do with a friend of hers who lost her ovaries to cancer because she was denied contraception services by Georgetown University. If you had a clue about this story, you’d know that, and you’d know that condoms have nothing to do with it. Jackass.
Crockett kept digging @ 7 with:
No. You’re not. You’re trying to support the unsupportable. If you were “trying to understand” anything, you would have bothered to educate yourself, in even a cursory way, about the facts of this story before shooting off your mouth and showing up here at The BRAD BLOG and making a jackass of yourself. Again.
Brad, as always you are full of shit. You are unable to answer my question. I want to know what the constitution instructs. What does the government have to pay for? Where does it end? Please give me an answer?
Thank you Brad for that reply to CROCKett. Its late here on the east coast and I’m too sleepy to formulate a proper reply.
Brad…I retract…you are not full of shit. I want free, fair, and accurate elections. In this regard, I think we agree (and thus you are not full of shit…only partially).
Crockett @ 10:
Do you think I am fucking Google? Look it up. You’ll learn all about what the government can choose to provide for the general welfare of we, the people.
In the meantime, the discussion is off topic for this post, since it has nothing to do with the government providing anything. Which I’m sure you realize, unless “you’re full of shit.”
Brad,
Ms. Fluke used a 6-sigma event to prove her argument. Not very satisfying for me.
First question: Government doesn’t pay anything when private insurers are required to provide women’s health care, as in the issue at hand. Do you really not understand that?
Answer: Yes I do–do you?? When the government requires insurance companies to cover something it comes from those paying for coverage…everybody pays. It is all about probability (you know…statistics). If the probability of a payout increases, everybody must pay more to cover that risk. Did you think that money appears from thin air? First law of thermodynamics!
Insurance should cover the case of cancer (Ms. Fluke’s friend). Moreover, I suspect that a doctor could write the script in a way to satisfy Georgetown U. and meet the needs of Ms. Fluke’s friend. Really, though, is that what Ms. Fluke is fighting for?
Second question: It’s nice that you’d like to decide what type of medical services other private citizens should enjoy. I’d like to leave that to a woman and her doctor, however. Especially since she was paying for her own private insurance.
Where is the question?
I agree! I do not want to decide the health care for anyone else!! Please leave me (and my taxes) out of it (unless I agree to be part of her insurance pool). Let each decide for himself and pay himself…to the level he wishes!!!
I want private insurance!!! Let me buy mine and you buy yours!! I can buy less and you can buy more…each to his own. Don’t let the government dictate my choice.
So, Brad/Ernest, lets say Georgetown U. covers the cancer cases. Are we done? Can we let the contraception case fade away. I am OK with that…lets cover the cancer cases. Are we now in solidarity??
In general…
I believe that only major medical insurance should be offered. We have been duped by employers, insurance companies, and government that we should be covered for the common cold. We have become little wussies…depending on a nanny comfort our every sneeze.
Brad @13
The topic is Ms. Fluke’s testimony. That is what I am discussing.
No, you are not “fucking Google.” If you were you would not be hanging around here.
I want a single payer system, like all the other industrialized nations. You know, one that works better, helps more people, and costs less. Our system is broken and not working, and will soon price itself out of the realm of average working stiffs or their employers. Davey’s just full of Crocket. Some people are so fucking selfish. If you can afford awesome private insurance now, you can afford it when we finally pull our heads out of our collective asses and make healthcare a fundamental right for all citizens. You’re the kind of person who wouldn’t give a sip of your water to a man dying of thirst, because he was too stupid to have his own. With incomes so low, and poverty so high, there is no way that private insurance is going to solve this country’s health problems. What do you care, though, right? You can afford it… But what is going to happen when most people CAN’T afford it? That’s right, they are going to demand government provided healthcare. And your going to fucking pay for it. As it should be.
…to stupid to NOT have his own….
Perhaps you can explain Fluke’s qualifications to testify at a hearing entitled “Lines Crossed: Separation of Church and State. Has the Obama Administration Trampled on Freedom of Religion and Freedom of Conscience?”
It was not, as you say, a “House Oversight Committee examining an issue vital to women’s health”, it was a hearing on Constitutional issues.
You should be embarrassed that your party chose Fluke, a long time malcontent and activist, to attempt to testify about her desires for MORE free contraception (ever heard of Title 10?)at a hearing on Constitutional matters.
Alas, I’d wager that you’re not.
My sister took the pill to control the raging early teen hormones that caused severe acne. She hadn’t begun to be interested in boys, let alone have sex. And that was fifty years ago!
At this time, there’s little evidence that birth control costs or saves an insurance company money in the long run. As a preventive of other conditions that a company might have to pay for, it’s a non-brainer. And actuaries like that.
Good, clear, and spot on post Ernie.
Colbert: I WANT TO TAKE A MOMENT TO TALK ABOUT THE MOST IMPORTANT ISSUE TO VOTERS THIS YEAR: CONTRACEPTION………..
http://www.colbertnation.com/the-colbert-report-videos/409941/march-05-2012/rush-limbaugh-apologizes-to-sandra-fluke
It is truly troubling when the misinformed, like Davey Crocket @various & Buzz @19 utilize the comment section of my academic article, to spout off right-wing talking points without so much as having read, let alone digested, what it is that I actually wrote.
The constitutional questions I presented, Mr. Crocket, had absolutely nothing to do with what the government is or is not obligated to provide to Ms. Fluke. Instead it pertained to questions as to whether, (1) under the guise of “religious freedom,” Congress can extend to religious institutions and employers the right to interfere in the medical decisions made by female employees and students and (2) whether under that same rouse of “religious freedom,” Congress can set up a religious test (membership in the clergy) as to who is qualified to occupy the “public trust” as a Congressional witness.
Finally, since the Catholic Church appears to have played a lead role in the effort to tell women how to live their lives, dare I suggest that the Vatican clean up its own mess first — the numerous priests who have molested little boys.
You remember him, don’t you? The guy you “people of faith” claim to worship!
I’m just wondering here… is guest blogger, Mr. Canning, in violation of your Rule #4) “Do NOT post knowing dis-information. If we determine that you are purposely and knowingly posting well-debunked information in order to confuse or deceive readers, the comment will be removed, and you will too after fair warning.”
Mr. Canning refers to the “House Oversight Committee examining an issue vital to women’s health”. That is easily and well debunked. The House Panel was NOT examining an issue vital to women’s health. The hearings were about separation of Church and State.
His claim, speaking of the “panel”, that “it was also all-clergy” is also easily and well debunked. The list of witnesses is simply NOT all clergy.
http://tinyurl.com/7kjq72b
Mr. Canning also refers to the “right-wing GOP House leaders fail to so much as recognize Fluke’s right to be heard…” What a train wreck this statement is. “House leaders” don’t control the Committee on Oversight and Government Reform, the Chairman does. It is also easily and well debunked that Fluke had any “right” to come and testify about her contraceptive wants/needs at a hearing about the Separation of Church/State.
Even the title of his blog entry, “Sandra Fluke’s Testimony and Issues of Church and State Posed to Constitutional Democracy by Those Who Hoped to Silence Her” is easily and well debunked. No one attempted to “silence” Ms. Fluke. With no noted credentials on either Constitutional or religious matters, she simply was not qualified to testify. Would Mr. Canning be equally as devastated if I showed up unannounced at the Democratic National Convention to speak about the deleterious effects of the welfare state and was “SILENCED”?
Hey, it’s your site and your rules. I’m just pointing out that if you want to keep disinformation and lies at bay, you’ve got an awfully good staring point with Mr. Canning’s guest blog. Of course you may determine that the gross inaccuracies weren’t intended to “confuse or deceive”.
Again, I ask you, Ernest…
Perhaps you can explain Fluke’s qualifications to testify at a hearing entitled “Lines Crossed: Separation of Church and State. Has the Obama Administration Trampled on Freedom of Religion and Freedom of Conscience?”
Another point missed by our right wing friends is that prescription contraceptives are a form of preventative medicine.
In the case of the 32 year old law student who was denied coverage of prescription contraceptives that would have cost approximately $3,000 over three years, her insurance carrier ultimately forked out somewhere between $7,000 – $15,000 for the hysterectomy she received because of her polycystic ovary.
In the case of an unwanted pregnancy, the medical expenditures associated with uncomplicated pregnancy and hospital costs was $7,600 in 2004.
That said, I am in total agreement with Chris Hooten that the only real solution on health care is a single-payer, Medicare-for-All system.
Where Davey Crocket is obsessed with how much sex other people might be having, I’m concerned about the 45,000 Americans who die each year simply because they can’t afford health insurance — that because our vice-into-virtue capitalist system places a higher value on the millions health insurance carrier CEOs and their Wall Street investors than on the health and very lives of our citizenry.
Buzz, like republiscums have done for years, pretends that calling a heart a club makes it a club. Issa is an idiot trying to give a legitimacy to his sham hearing by naming it what he did.
The issue to be examined is how republiscums have damaged our nation by giving religion a voice in government that the founders didn’t.
Buzz @24 writes:
Since the question raised by the “title” assigned to the hearing by the American Taliban (aka Tea Party House Republicans) entails a question of constitutional law (the boundaries between church and state), I would respectfully submit that Ms. Fluke as a third year law student was far more qualified to answer it than a bevy of theologians.
Thus, even if one were to assume that the GOP did not attempt to evade the core issue — women’s health — by its deceptive framing, the two panels of all-male theologians were uniquely unqualified to answer the question posed.
The ideal witnesses for such a hearing would have been (a) law professors and (b) medical experts, though certainly I have have no objection if the views of theologians were also heard.
Oh, one final point.
The very same House Republicans who produced this hearing routinely vote to waste our tax dollars on subsidies for the oil industry, expenditures on the military-industrial complex and foreign wars designed to make the world safe for the Exxon-Mobil/Chevron bottom line — all of which I and many Americans find morally repugnant.
So why didn’t they also conduct a hearing as to whether the GOP Republicans have “trampled” on my “Freedom of Conscience” by using my tax dollars in such a morally repugnant fashion?
Ernest,
Chocolate and vanilla, I suppose. You prefer 30 year old (chuckle) college students who can’t support themselves and medical experts testifying at a hearing on Separation of Church and State. I don’t.
When your only tool is a hammer (free, government provided, single payer health
There would have been one question that I would have liked to hear the group of Republican-assembled clergy answer: “How would you feel about an employer belonging to another religious group being able to impose their views on members of your faith who happen to be their employees? Is the religious ‘freedom’ of employers more important than that of employees?”
Spare me the “chocolate and vanilla” nonsense, Buzz @29. The reality is that the House GOP scheduled this so-called “hearing” on “religious freedom” in the hopes of poking the President in the eye and diverting attention from the fact that the likely GOP nominee is a tax-dodging, Gordon Gekko-like Wall Streeter, Mitt “Corporations are People†Romney, who made a fortune through the job destroying, predatory capitalist, leveraged buy out firm, Bain Capital.
Unfortunately for the American Taliban, fortunately for the rest of us, their little culture war stunt, which amounted to an assault on more than half the U.S. population (women), has backfired big time.
As revealed by Liberation News:
That report also reveals that a study performed last year found that 98% of “sexually experienced Catholic women have used contraceptives at some point in their lifetime.”
One suspects that the percentage of people who were repulsed by Limbaugh’s scurrilous assault on Sandra Fluke’s character would be even higher.
So keep it up, hard-right blowhards. The more you expose your true colors (union busting, voter suppression, war on women), the greater the likelihood that the American public will find the GOP as repulsive as they do Limbaugh’s misogynistic vitriol.
Jeez, last I looked — sex, pregnancy, and pregnancy prevention are ALL health issues. Oh yeah, and did I say sex? Ask ANY doctor if sex is not a health issue. Go ahead, Davey Crock-a-Shit, ask. If the doctor is not a member of the hard-right male clergy, I have no doubt that he or she will say, yes. Sex, pregnancy, and pregnancy prevention are ALL vital HEALTH issues. PERIOD.
One final point? Surely, you jest.
You’ve taken a hearing on separation of Church & State and twisted it to be about:
tuition costs
women’s health
molestation
contraception costs
single payer, Medicare for all!
pregnancy costs
the Military Industrial Complex
and of course
BIG OIL.
So, I doubt that you CAN make a final comment. The wandering ramblings, sprinkled with lies and misrepresentations, characterized by you as being somehow **academic**, is ludicrous, at best.
Here, so you can at least wind down the number of topics you feel compelled to drag into the topic of Separation of Church & State, let me cover a few more that I’m sure are itching to get out:
Reagan
W
War For Oil
Ken Starr
Sarah Palin
Greed
Fair Share©
Chevy Volt is AWESOME!
Connedservatives, Republicunts, and any other high-minded name you can think to call those that have different opinions than you.
Global Coolin..errr, Global Warmin… errr, Climate Chang…errr, Global Climate Disruption
and
I’m better than you ‘cos I have a cloth grocery bag.
There, I think that about covers your “Academic” discussion of Separation of Church & State.
Thanks for serving your country.
I think Sandra Fluke is brave, way beyond the false bravado of Limbaugh, hiding behind his call screeners. He’s a little paranoid man that thinks everyone is out to “get him”. Some other idiot was like that who died recently. What was his name again? *snark*
Davey Crocket: OK! OK! WE GET IT! YOU DON’T LIKE SEX!
i am old enough to remember what woman did before the pill…..they had baby after baby,sometimes with a miscarriage or two sprinkled in…and they died young
this fight is not about freedom of religion…it is about one religion being given special benefits over all others
In responding to the irrational mumblings of Davey Crocket and Buzz, I overlooked a gratuitous smear that should not have gone unanswered.
Specifically, Buzz @18 wrote:
The last portion of the sentence is a baldfaced lie. Sandra Fluke did not “attempt to testify about her desires for MORE free contraception.”
I have no problem with the word activist. Martin Luther King was an activist. So were most of our nation’s founding fathers.
Sandra Fluke is the past president of Georgetown Law Students for Reproductive Justice. Please tell me how that makes her a “malcontent.”
Or is it that anyone who disagrees with the hard-right agenda is labeled a “malcontent?”
While the video of her testimony smashes through both your factual misrepresentations of what she had to say and how she said it, here’s what Georgetown Univ. President John J. DeGioia had to say about her testimony in an email he forwarded to everyone on her campus.
In our vibrant and diverse society, there always are important differences that need to be debated, with strong and legitimate beliefs held on all sides of challenging issues.
It appears to me, Buzz, that you fit within the “commentators” who President DeGioia lumped together with Limbaugh.
You’ve both misrepresented what Ms. Fluke said and smeared her in the process.
Have you no sense of shame?
Ernest,
Given that you can see things that simply don’t exist (an all clergy panel), I guess it’s safe to assume that you can’t see things that do exist.
Fluke testified “Without insurance coverage, contraception, as you know, can cost a woman over $3,000 during law school.” Combine that with the obama’s proclamation, “Under the rule, women will still have access to free preventive care that includes contraceptive service no matter where they work.”
Fluke didn’t detail any medical condition that she has that would make contraception medically necessary, so what do you think? Contraception is already free (Title X) in most non-rural areas.
As for her malcontent status, she verified that policies of the Jesuit school she chose to attend, then enrolled anyway. It would be akin to me enrolling at a gay college, then demanding that they stop providing free condoms. Can you see that? Doubtful. Try pretending that the condoms are an all clergy panel. Heh.
Feign shock and horror if you wish. Invoking Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.in a discussion about Ms. Fluke is pretty shameful, by the way.
There are gay colleges?? Really???? I’ve heard of gay-friendly colleges… What a stupid example. And I can’t quite decode the nonsensical sentence, “Try pretending that the condoms are an all clergy panel.” Does that mean something? You must be so proud, Buzz. And your mom should be proud as well.
If there was an all gay campus, what would the women do with the condoms, blow them up as party favors? Just wondering.
Buzz, Everyone that isn’t deluding themselves realizes that the hearing had as it’s deep issue, contraception. But just to play into your self-delusion (or paid trolling) how about this: do you believe that the erstwhile members of the clergy and their university fellows and think-tank spokesmen were testifying that the government should not be propping up Catholic Charities to the tune of 62%-67% of their funding? You think that’s what they were objecting to.
You think they were there to rail against the Office of Faith Based Initiatives and Neighborhood Partnerships and all the hundreds of millions of dollars the Federal government funnels through it to various faith based community programs of all stripes?
Or is that government imposition they can live with?
Srsly, do you think anybody here (even us lurkers) is stupid enough to fall for your recitation of a Republican talking point? LOL, not today.
Keep up the good work Mr. Canning.
http://www.city-journal.org/html/10_1_how_catholic_charities.html
I suggest “religious freedom” has been employed recently as the code word for simple, overt theocracy, that is rule of individual morality, or in the case of religion, institutional morality.
Morality instead of law, which system of law is instituted precisely to preclude the readily foreseeable, irresolvable conflicts arising from clashes of “morality.”
Note that moral objection to contraception is small change compared with, and easily accommodated in, the larger issue of theocracy.
Note, also, with alarm, please, that legislative approval of US theocracy came within a couple vote flip (51-48) in the defeat of the Blunt amendment in the senate.
Buzz @38 continues to misrepresent Fluke’s testimony as reflecting her personal contraceptive needs by pointing to the $3,000 cost estimate, even though Fluke gave that estimate as to female Georgetown Law School students, generally. Fluke did not utter one word about her own personal contraceptive needs. But then, I should not be surprised that the scarcely literate do not understand the fundamental differences between first person and third person narratives.
Buzz then added:
In her Congressional testimony, Fluke destroyed Buzz’s “malcontent” argument far better than I could:
We can only answer that we expected women to be treated equally, to not have our school create untenable burdens that impede our academic success. We expected that our schools would live up to the Jesuit creed of cura personalis, to care for the whole person by meeting all of our medical needs. We expected that when we told our universities of the problems this policy created for us as students, they would help us. We expected that when 94% of students opposed the policy, the university would respect our choices regarding insurance students pay for, completely unsubsidized by the university. We did not expect that women would be told in the national media that we should have gone to school elsewhere…even if that meant going to a less prestigious university. We refuse to pick between a quality education and our health; and we resent that in the 21st Century anyone thinks it is acceptable to ask us to make this choice simply because we are women.
Under Buzz’s right-wing blowhard talking point definition, 94% of the students at Georgetown University are “malcontents” because they disagree with a policy that permits the university to interfere with the medical choices made by female students even though it is the students, and not the university, who pay for the entirety of their health insurance policies.
Again I ask, Buzz, have you no sense of shame?
Buzzed and Crackhead, you both overlook many crucial issues, including the UNCONSTITUTIONAL demand of the mother-killing, child-raping Catholic clergy to enslave us women in deadly bankrupting incubation for their pedophile base. Their freedom to belong to a sexist cult doesn’t also give them the right to kidnap married women’s uteruses for their own selfish and CRIMINAL pedophilia. That’s criminal Munchausen by Proxy medical malpractice, assault and negligence. We women aren’t stopping nuns and priests from THEIR OWN killer breeding, so how dare they ROB OUR ALREADY PAID-FOR INSURANCE and gut it of what we need it most for! Google stinky marriage-ruining childbirth bladder and bowel incontinence fistulas to learn the REAL reason why the Vatican declared women “piles of dung”, still bans marriage for priests, and annuls GOP playboy marriages left and right.
Would you tolerate Democratic women holding hearings for Sister Lorena Bobbitts, then banning Bobbitted husbands from testifying on their uninsured penile reattachment surgeries??
Do you understand that Georgetown’s policy also punishes young married non-Catholic MALES with abstinence only? Most contraception users aren’t even slightly promiscuous. Even missionary nuns use the pill in case they’re raped in war-torn assignments. And where is your condemnation of Slush Limpball’s OWN ADULTEROUS contraception use?? — he’s had FOUR wives, and countless PAID and conned conquests, none of whom have needed child support! Why are BC pill-using celibate women automatic sluts, while admitted adulterous sex tourists like Slush your heroes??
P.S. And since Slush’s Viagra prescription was in his doctor’s name, why is no one asking cheapskate millionaire Slush if he STOLE it from the doctor’s bag?? And why is no one asking “pro-life” millionaire Slush why he has ZERO kids from multiple marriages and affairs?? Slush is my definition of a male SLUT.
Buzz and Crack have their Right wing talking points down pat. They have no need to read the article, much less understand it. Nor do they have any compelling reason to consider common sense, facts or logic in their ludicrous spews. Willful ignorance is considered a virtue in their circle of right wing stupids of the Limbaugh school of mindless blowhards.
The only shame in ignorance is taking pride in it. .
@ Heil Mary #45
It’s probably because of a prenup that his wives don’t have to have sex with the repugnant bag of snot.
Oh, one minor point. Here’s the official list of t panel depicted in the photo above, a panel that was all male and all-clergy, despite what Buzz claims:
Witnesses
Panel I
The Most Reverend William E. Lori
Roman Catholic Bishop of Bridgeport, CT
Chairman Ad Hoc Committee for Religious Liberty
United States Conference of Catholic Bishops
TnT Form
The Reverend Dr. Matthew C. Harrison
President
The Lutheran Church – Missouri Synod
C. Ben Mitchell, Ph.D.
Graves Professor of Moral Philosophy
Union University
Rabbi Meir Soloveichik
Director of the Straus Center for Torah and Western Thought
Yeshiva University
Associate Rabbi
Congregation Kehilath Jeshurun
Craig Mitchell, Ph.D.
Associate Professor of Ethics
Chair of the Ethics Department
Associate Director of the Richard Land Center for Cultural Engagement
Southwestern Baptist Theological Seminary