You may recall that all-dude panel of “experts” at that recent congressional hearing on contraception. One of the reasons it was an all-dude panel was that congressional Republicans wouldn’t let Georgetown law student Sandra Fluke testify on the costs of birth control. (She later testified at a separate hearing held by Nancy Pelosi.)
Apparently stating publicly how much contraception costs when it’s not covered by insurance is basically the equivalent of pooping on the flag to some misogynistic assholes, among them the always charming Rush Limbaugh, who has denounced Fluke as a “slut” and a whore, saying, at one point, that she
went before a Congressional committee and said she’s having so much sex she’s going broke buying contraceptives and wants us to buy them.
Actually, she didn’t testify about her own experience at all.
Also, does Limbaugh even know how contraception works? Yes, the number of condoms one buys depends on how often you have sex. (Or at the very least how often you hope to have sex. Who knows how many boxes of condoms, purchased in moments of optimism, have quietly expired on the shelf waiting for their purchasers to finally get their mojo working. )
But the costs of many other forms of contraception have no relation whatsoever to the frequency of sex. Women on “the pill” take a pill every day, regardless of whether they are having sex that day or not. Women using IUDs don’t run down to the health center to have one installed every time their vagina expects a visitor.
Birth control, in short, doesn’t work like Oxycontin or Viagra, the two pills about which Limbaugh seems most knowledgeable.
Sorry to belabor the obvious, which apparently isn’t so obvious if you’re a right-wing, woman-hating asshole.
Anyway, now Limbaugh seems to think he’s entitled to watch Fluke having sex:
So Miss Fluke, and the rest of you Feminazis, here’s the deal. If we are going to pay for your contraceptives, and thus pay for you to have sex. We want something for it. … We want you post the videos online so we can all watch.
Dude, what the fuck is wrong with you?
Here’s the excerpt from his radio show in which he makes this creepy demand.
http://images.search.yahoo.com/search/images?_adv_prop=image&fr=yfp-t-701&va=kitties
[haha, I posted that last comment under the wrong name. Please ignore…]
Yeah, this. I don’t entirely agree it’s a distraction, because this is something that can change, like, today and I don’t think the entire system of healthcare payment can.
But it is pretty fucked that healthcare has become a thing that an individual (unless they’re quite rich) can’t access without being part of an institution of some sort, and that the quality of your healthcare is sorted by the “class” of that institution.
Right now, I’m on state healthcare (i.e., wait six months for a physical, no dental or mental health coverage, prescriptions cost “oh my god, that can’t be a real number,” giant expensive runaround if you need a specialist) because I’m part-time at my job and part-time in school, not enough of either to qualify for insurance through either. And I’m lucky to be on state healthcare, compared to people who simply have none.
And the expense and restrictiveness of all this, compared to if I could just go to a doctor and pay them a reasonable price for their services (with a safety net for poor people or catastrophic illness, I’m not ready to go full free-market on this one but it could be a hell of a lot freer)… it’s ridiculous.
It’s such a shitty system that changing it to “a shitty system that pays for your birth control” is really just taking a chip off an iceberg of terrible.
Still, it’s a damn important chip. As long as we have this shitty system, I can at least get birth control out of it.
http://citykitties.org/
A worthy cause! Saving and improving the lives of kitties!
http://www.wittykitties.org/
More help for kitties.
http://kindredkitties.org/
Kitties need your help!
I’m going to a Catholic school. It’s not because I’m Catholic and it’s not because I think Catholicism is awesome. It’s because they were the cheapest nursing program in my area and the one most willing to accept my outside credits.
Likewise, I used to work for a Catholic association (I was a nursing assistant in two of their care facilities), not because I supported their mission as such, but because they hired me.
“Don’t like it, don’t go there” is a privileged attitude; sometimes going through religious organizations is someone’s only reasonable option.
http://www.kittenrescue.org/
Kitties need your charity!
Part of this is classism in action-the poor are not supposed to have any fun because they have not “earned it” like the wealthy have. Therefore since sex is fun, they should only have it when they have “earned it.” And if they have not “earned it” then they should be punished for having it…with the attendant “who cares who gets hurt, as long as those bad people are punished.”
http://www.facebook.com/pages/Saving-CATS/196721723733741
I’m abiding by the rules you set forth, Dave. I expect you to keep your end of the bargain and post my kitty pictures. What’s your word worth, Dave?
When Rush Limbaugh was busted with Viagra, he was not with a group of women, he was with four other men, which probably explain why he’s a misogynistic homophobic Republican. 🙂
Yeah, there are a LOT of schools and hospitals that are run by religious organizations. The Seventh Day Adventists run almost as many hospitals as the Catholic Church, and their attitudes towards women are worse, if possible. It’s not always feasible to tell people to go elsewhere, since sometimes those run by religious organizations are the only game in town. For example, the only local psychiatric hospital that accepts Medicaid is run by Adventist Health.
This is why we need rules like the one Limbaugh hates so much. Religious institutions that provide a secular service (such as healthcare or education) must be held to the same standards as secular institutions that provide a similar service–especially if they receive government money. If the Catholic Church doesn’t like it, then maybe they should get out of the business of running hospitals.
Ah, Buttman…
Having coupled sex–that is to say, sex wherein both halves of the couple give enthusiastic consent to the act–is, in fact, an absolute right. What isn’t a right is for one person to demand to have sex with another person without that second person’s consent. So in fact, you’re an illiterate fuck-head, as well as a horrible shitstain of a human being.
Yeah. Having coupled sex is a right that couples have. Individuals don’t have the right to demand that society supply them with a partner.
ApeMan1976 – what about women who live in an area where the only hospital is Catholic? We don’t have much choice about where the ambulance will go, or which ER is closest in an emergency. It’s not enough to say “Well women should avoid Catholic institutions” as if that’s a solution. We may not have a choice. Letting any institution with any religious affiliation deny services at will while a large portion of the healthcare access is being controlled by them is resulting in the deaths of women. (See the WaPo column just for starters: http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2011/01/19/AR2011011907539.html )
I’d love to know if these asshole Senators would be fine with their employers taking away their Viagra and telling them they have to use voodoo instead. *eyeroll*
And of course, the vote in the Senate today wasn’t about birth control. It was about shattering the Affordable Care Act (aka “Obamacare”).
Captain Bathrobe, as it happens – and unfortunately I am not making this up – the UK’s biggest tabloid fairly recently justified trying and hunt down a man that’d given birth on the basis that he may have used government-funded obstetric care. Of course this had rather more to do with transphobia than misandry, but I guess it shows something about the difficulty of making up impossible hypothetical scenarios.
Oh my goodness — NWO actually posted a bunch of stuff about kitties? O_O
NWO, you can read!!! Keep up with the cat stuff.
Of course Rush is full of shit, those years of oxy abuse will constipate you.
He’s trying to post pictures of sad kittens, since this is the only thing he can do to be spiteful now. In which case, NWO, CHALLENGE ACCEPTED!
http://kittenwar.com/kittens/169170/
http://helpinghomelesscats.com/
I’m not – at all – saying that if you go to a Catholic institution you “can’t complain” or any of that. I’m just saying if you have a choice, avoid these places. Yes, it’s a privileged position to think you have a choice where to go to school. But… many people do have such a choice. So, if you have that choice, use it. As a Catholic I’m always surprised at how surprised people are when they get reminded that indeed women are not fully human in Catholic teaching. It’s right there in the doctrine. It’s not going anywhere. Catholicism is and always has been explicitly anti-woman.
They also spent several generations running a child sex slavery ring, which, you know, I guess, you can make your own judgments about.
Wait, NWO is posting pictures of cats? Our feminazi brainwashing has been a success!
NWO, David’s word is worth infinitely more than yours.
David’s keeping his word, NWO.
You do get to post kitty pictures. You don’t get to post rape apologism.
It’s really a very consistent rule and I’d think even you wouldn’t be that confused.
I’m starting to wonder if Rush Limbaugh can read my mind, since every time I think, “Wow, Rush Limbaugh could not be more of a terrible, disgusting excuse for a human being,” he appears to respond by saying, “CHALLENGE ACCEPTED!”
NWO: I’m going to have to insist that you keep your comments confined to actual pictures and/or videos of cute kitties. Posting a news story about a woman getting hit by a car and killed while trying to help an injured cat doesn’t count, mainly because I can’t help but imagine you chortling as you posted it. Videos of women breastfeeding cats also don’t count.