Blog Post

Georgetown Student's Birth Control Testimony Sparks Widespread Outrage

Commentary by Susan Brinkmann, OCDS

Instead of convincing the public that women need mandated birth control coverage, Nancy Pelosi's unofficial hearing featuring a promiscuous Georgetown law student is causing even more controversy than the mandate.

CNSNews.com is reporting that Sandra Fluke, a third-year Georgetown law student and women's reproductive rights activist, told a handful of Democratic representatives at a hearing last week that women in her law school are having so much sex they're going broke. Unfortunately for these students, Georgetown, a Catholic university, does not provide contraceptive coverage.

"Forty percent of the female students at Georgetown Law reported to us that they struggled financially as a result of this policy," Fluke said. "Without insurance coverage, contraception, as you know, can cost a woman over $3,000 during law school. . . . For a lot of students, like me, who are on public interest scholarships, that’s practically an entire summer’s salary," she said.

The testimony has brought widespread condemnation of the already unpopular mandate with even supporters of the policy questioning the reasoning behind forcing religious institutions to provide insurance for this kind of promiscuous behavior.

Craig Bannister of CNS did the math and says $3,000 over three years amounts to having sex 2.74 times a day, every day, for three straight years.

"Apparently, four out of every ten co-eds are having so much sex that it's hard to make ends meet if they have to pay for their own contraception," according to Fluke's research, Bannister writes.

What made her testimony even more outrageous is the fact that "there are Planned Parenthood clinics in her neighborhood that give condoms away and sell them at a discount, which could help make her sexual zeal more economical," Bannister reports.

Her other option would be to avail herself of condoms at CVS pharmacy's website, which are available for $1 each.

The Weekly Standard also pointed out that Fluke and her friends could purchase birth control pills as low as $9 per month at a pharmacy near Georgetown's campus.

"According to an employee at the pharmacy in Washington, D.C.'s Target store, the pharmacy sells birth control pills-the generic versions of Ortho Tri-Cyclen and Ortho-Cyclen--for $9 per month," the Standard writes, which is the cost of the pills without insurance. "Nine dollars is less than the price of two beers at a Georgetown bar."

They conclude: "It strains credulity to believe that a single Georgetown student can't afford $9 per month for birth control. But this is the justification the mandate's supporters give for forcing religious institutions to purchase insurance that violates their religious and moral convictions."

Fluke ended her testimony by expressing her resentment of university officials and others who suggest she should have chosen to attend a different university that would have offered contraception coverage.

“We refuse to pick between a quality education and our health and we resent that, in the 21st Century, anyone thinks it’s acceptable to ask us to make that choice simply because we are women,” Fluke said.

To this, Tina Korbe, writing for Hot Air, replied:  "Ms. Fluke, I resent that you think women are incapable of controlling themselves, of sacrificing temporary pleasure for the sake of long-term success. You make us sound like animals, slaves to our instincts and able to be used, but we’re better than that. We’re persons, equal to men in dignity and love."

Sandra Fluke's laughable testimony appears to have backfired on feminist lawmakers. Instead of convincing the public about the need for mandatory contraceptive coverage, it revealed just how wrongheaded this policy really is.

© All Rights Reserved, Living His Life Abundantly®/Women of Grace®  http://www.womenofgrace.com

Categories

Archives

2024

2024 Archives

2023
2022
2021
2020
2019
2018
2017
2016
2015
2014
2013
2012
2011
2010
2009
2008