This week Rush Limbaugh has repeatedly attacked Georgetown Law Student Sandra Fluke for her support of the Affordable Care Act provision providing free preventative and contraceptive care for both men and women. But it's important to actually note what Ms. Fluke testified too, and it wasn't about Sex.
In the worst cases women who need this coverage for other medical reasons (besides birth control/ or sex) suffer very dire consequences. A friend of mine has polycystic ovarian syndrome, and she has to take birth control to stop cysts from growing on her ovaries. Her prescription is technically coverage by Georgetown Insurance because it's not intended to prevent pregnancy. Unfortunately under many institutions religious exceptions it wouldn't be. When you let university administrators or employers dictate over women and doctors whose medical needs are legitimate and whose are not, a women's health takes a back seat to a bureaucracy focused on policing her body. In 65% of the cases at our school our female students were interrogated by insurance representatives and university medical staff about why they needed this prescription and whether they were lying about their symptoms.
For my friend, and 20% of the women at our school, she never got the insurance company to cover her prescription, despite verification of her illness from her doctor. Her claim was denied repeatedly on the assumption that she really wanted birth control to prevent pregnancy. She's Gay, so clearly polycystic ovarian syndrome was a much more urgent concern. After months of paying over $100 out of pocket she just couldn't afford it anymore and she had to stop taking it.
(One Night) She called me and said "It was so painful, it felt like I'd been shot". She was rushed to the emergency room. Without her taking the medication a massive cyst, the size of a tennis ball, had grown on her ovary. She had to have surgery to remove her ovary as a result. On the morning I was originally supposed to give this testimony she was sitting in a doctors office trying to cope with the consequences of this medical catastrophe.
So the factual situation is this: Georgetown actually
does offer contraceptive coverage for medical reasons besides preventing pregnancy - but in some cases they
simply refuse because they decided that the student
was lying about her medical condition and as result she suffered complications and the loss of her ovary as a result.
Let that sink in. Marinate in that for a while.
Now how do you feel about what Limbaugh has been saying?
Sanda's testimony wasn't about herself, it was about her friend and other female students at Georgetown. And in this case a friend who is gay! That's who Limbaugh was calling "Slut" - a Gay Woman with Ovarian Cysts.
This is what all of this is about. It's not about "Sluts" with so many boyfriends they need birth control because they have to have sex with three guy's tonight. The woman who prompted Sandra Fluke to get involved in this issue and to testify IS GAY and wasn't trying to have sex with a long line of boys, so she desperately needed to pre-abort a baby.
That simply isn't the case.
She needed a prescription drug recommended by her doctor for her Health. Now because a bunch of prudish men at her university have a "religious objection" she's lost her ovary.
This is what Sandra Fluke was testifying about. She did NOT testify about her own sex life. That is what those in the GOP are fighting for the "Religious Freedom" to do -- deny women (or men) health care when they need it, even if they will suffer dire consequences as a result!.
When you call and tweet advertisers of Limbaugh's show, when people like Romney and Santorum are asked about this in the future - the focus of the question should be do you support women losing their ovaries because their employer or their school has the "Freedom" to block them from medicine?
It's not about "Sluts". It's about Health.
Vyan
12:19 PM PT: Let me add in response to comments that we shouldn't cede the basic issue of reproductive and sexual freedom. We shouldn't. In this diary I'm pointing out that Sandra's primary point in her testimony wasn't anything like what Limbaugh had claimed it was - but if it had been about Reproductive or Sexual Freedom he still would be wrong! Both Men and Women have a right to their Sexual Freedom, be they straight or LGBT with the consensual partner of their choice - just as much as a set of pious priest have a right to be celibate.
And neither has the right to dictate or try to coerce or control what the other does.