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.
Rush Limbaugh obviously thinks good girls shrink in horror from the thought of sex because every woman he’s ever been with shrank in horror from the thought of sex.
But if you believe this, then why aren’t you spending your time on this thread chastising Limbaugh for calling a woman who uses birth control a whore?
She wants other people to pay for her to use birth control. That’s where the grey area is – do you want to force organizations to finance a lifestyle they do not support? It’s not so much masculinity against femininity as David and many of his supporters frame it, but rather autonomy versus authority.
I think I’ve gotten confused about what’s going on here. Is contraception covered by health insurance at the moment? Is the argument about some employers wanting to remover cover for contraception or is contraception a new thing that wasn’t covered before? (I know people have explained this before, but I’m slow to catch on.)
@Magpie
They’re trying to get birth control pills covered under their insurance plan (I think it was a student insurance plan). AFAIK contraception isn’t covered by most plans
Having sex is a “lifestyle” now?
Beware the insidious Sex-Haver Agenda!
(Or really, since most people who need contraception are straight… It’s the Heterosexual Agenda!)
She wants the insurance company to pay for a medicine, like it pays for vigara. She is paying insurance premiums like everyone else. Viagra is “free” to those who pay for insurance. Birth control should similarly be included, because of the benefits for everyone if it is included.
Please note that vasectomies are also included as “free” with the new law. That is, they are included in what is paid for by the insurance premiums that everyone who has insurance pays.
Also, since when is having sex a “lifestyle”?
That insidious heterosexual agenda. (PDF)
And for the umpteenth time I repeat that this is all about insurance plans that women are PAYING for. It’s not “the government gives everyone birth control for free.” It’s “when you pay $200/month for your health plan, that includes birth control.”
@Bostonian
Vasectomies are covered now? Well that’s just pissing in women’s cereal now. Are litigations covered as well?
You’re so dumb. She wants her insurance, which she works for and pays for, to cover her prescription medication. Period.
Thanks Shadow and Bostonian!
How come birth control pills weren’t covered to start with? I was assuming anything you needed a prescription for would be covered.
(Geez I’m glad we do it differently in Australia. Not just for the cost. It seems too complicated for me to navigate.)
If you’re having P in V sex, pretty much the only way contraception isn’t part of your lifestyle is if you’re Quiverfull. Which I don’t think most MRAs would want to sign up for, but hey, it’s not really about lifestyles anyway, it’s about their wierd emotional need to make women’s lives as unpleasant as possible.
Everything is a “lifestyle” now. Nevermind being sexually active is about as normal as eating regularly for like 99% of adult humans. What’s not considered a lifestyle, naturally, is choosing to not have sex at all until you chose to enter into a contract, under a deity, that can’t be broken, and only ever engage in any intercourse to make kids, lots and lots of kids.
That’s about as extreme a lifestyle choice as you can make, but that’s what the Santorum vote calls “natural”.
Which is fine. Stupid, but fine. If only they were content to just punish themselves with it, instead of everyone else too.
Some of the “liberal MRAs” on Reddit would claim this is a totally unfair ad hominem generalization. This is why I appreciate David’s lax moderation policy – we’ve got Ideologue Review, Arks, and NWO around to prove this is absolutely true statement about many of the most vocal MRAs.
You’re so dumb. She wants her insurance, which she works for and pays for, to cover her prescription medication.
You know what’s dumb? Assuming that because something is prescribed, it’s okay. After all, it’s not like doctors ever have any incentive whatsoever to medicate their patients, or patients ever lie to get drugs. Hell, if David became a psychiatrist rather than a blogger, he would probably recommend chemical castration for every man who did not buy into his politics, or as he puts it, “men who should not ever be with women ever.”
So… you don’t think birth control is necessary now? Or is this just a random rant that has no bearing on the issue whatsoever?
It’s “when you pay $200/month for your health plan, that includes birth control.”
Okay, nobody is forcing you to work for a nunnery. You know that if you want to violate your employer’s values, they will not compensate you for it. That will enter into your decision to work for them. If they don’t want to pay that extra $20 for the birth control option, that’s their decision. That’s what this argument is about, whether your dogma can be forced on private organizations.
Well it is not like birth control has been studied or anything…
Actually, it is about whether private organizations can violate the law, and the thing is, they cannot.
They cannot prevent a private insurer from providing birth control as part of their health plan, which is the current policy being instituted.
They are not allowed to prohibit medical care.
So… you don’t think birth control is necessary now?
No, I don’t think that because something is “prescription medication” it is automatically a good thing. If you’re going to address someone mounted on the gleaming opulent horse of superior Aryan intellect, you should not start off with a logical fallacy so obvious a child could find it.
Well, this is the oddest “argument” I’ve read all day, and believe me, I’ve read a lot of odd arguments today.
Also, I’m not actually a fan of chemical castration. Though I do think that if some dude clearly hates women, he probably should not date or marry women.
Shocking, I know.
“If you’re going to address someone mounted on the gleaming opulent horse of superior Aryan intellect”
This is supposed to be you?
IR, I was trying to understand the differences between US medical care and Aus medical care. Here, (almost) every prescription medication is subsidised, so it costs me about $3, no matter what it’s worth. That’s all I meant.
Uh, what?
Actually, it is about whether private organizations can violate the law, and the thing is, they cannot.
Because it’s not like there are debates about laws or anything so that people who want to *GASP! SQUEAL!* violate the content of those laws after they’re partially or fully repealed can do so.
You know, prohibition, limited suffrage, etc.