Conservative media's response to Sandra Fluke testimony

http://twitter.com/ShirtNinja K. Williams

Jesus. This makes the bullying I endured in school look like paradise. This young woman is all kinds of brave. I wish I could give her a hug.

Anahata

It’s patently obvious that Limbaugh, Malkin, and the rest of the right-wing hate brigade are dying to have sex with Fluke.

mung0

My very precious daughter is about to marry an American and move to your country
*is scared*

http://twitter.com/bazimmerman Brad Zimmerman

Most individual Americans are fine. But, like anywhere, put a group of them together and the average IQ drops quickly into double digits.
- SamSam
  
  Given that half the population has an IQ in the double digits — by the very definition of IQ — this is not that surprising.
  
  If the total IQ dropped quickly into the double digits, that would be more interesting.
  - http://www.facebook.com/people/Christopher-Howard-Lee/100002219701276 Christopher Howard Lee
    
    Actually, extensive independent testing reveals that the average IQ of Republicans is substantially lower than that of Democrats. Smart people are a little better at seeing when they’re being sold a pile of dingo’s kidneys.
    - davidasposted
      
      Your comment implies that the Democratic Party is not selling its members/supporters a pile of dingo’s kidneys.
  - Sean McKibbon
    
    http://wilderdom.com/intelligence/IQWhatScoresMean.html
    
    population distribution of IQ scores.
  - Paul Renault
    
    ”by the very definition of IQ ”
    
    Nope. It’s ‘by the very definition of median’.
mkultra

It’s really frustrating that our nation is so easily judged by the worst among us–and have no doubt, these are the worst America has to offer.

Many of us are just fine, as long as you stick to the sane parts of the country. (Even in the insane parts, there are a lot of nice people, here and there.) Specifically, places that showed up blue on electoral maps of the 2008 election should be fine.
- jandrese
  
  It’s the same phenomenon that causes people to think that French people are going to be smelly and rude to strangers, or that the British won’t be able to cook you anything edible or that any Arab country will be full of Al-Quida sympathizers. Extreme behavior is memorable and makes the news.
  
  The ad never goes:
  “Man has pleasant time at restaurant, wait staff are friendly and courteous, film at 11″.
- Thad Boyd
  
  Rush isn’t even close to “the worst America has to offer”.
  
  In terms of discourse, sure. He’s pure poison.
  
  But it’s METAPHORICAL poison.
  
  There are actual violent criminals out there. THEY’RE the worst America has to offer.
  
  Rush is a terrible human being. Bad enough that “Hey, to the best of my knowledge he’s never actually physically assaulted anybody” is actually the nicest thing I can think of to say about him.
  
  But hey — to the best of my knowledge he’s never actually physically assaulted anybody.
  - http://disqus.com/Kimmoth/ Kimmo
    
    Do you mean to suggest that all it takes to be a more worthless human being than Limbaugh is to physically assault somebody?
    
    Come on. Surely someone with millions of ears is capable of more signicant harm than the odd physical assault.
    
    Why, take Alan Jones for example. I’m sure he doesn’t consider himself in the same league as the great Rush Limbaugh, but he’s got at least one riot to his name.
- danarmak
  
  Strong words. I bet I could find some Americans who are worse.

Blaise Pascal

…Michelle Malkin denounced Fluke as a “femme-agogu tool.” <- May I presume "femme-agogu" to be intended as "fem-agogue"? Otherwise, that's (even more) beyond the pale of regular conservative idiocy.

In any case, I never have understood (despite all the conjecture) the double-standard of the sexually potent male (celebrated) vs. the sexually active female (demonized). If men are having a lot of sex and the women they are having a lot of sex with are sluts, whores, etc…doesn't that equally debase the man? I suppose the penis of these men are magickal, not actually touching the flesh of the "whores" they are sticking it into.

Mark_Frauenfelder

I’m not sure. I’m directly quoting Alternet.
- Paul Renault
  
  I was baffled too. And French is my first language.
  
  Maybe the Malkin got her pronounciation tips from the crowd at Sky News, reporting on the Louise Boat, and this is how she pronounces femagogue.
Teller

Femme-agogue, for sure. Unless Ms Fluke was wearing white boots for her testimony, then, femme-a-gogo.
- Brainspore
  
  Or a dress made of meat, in which case it should have been femme-a-Gaga.
  - Teller
    
    Or her testimony was actually satire: Femme-a-Gogol.

fadetomute

says more about the attitudes that you would find in bed with these commenters.

msbpodcast

Has anybody pointed out to the conservative media that its International Women’s Day. :-)

Vengefultacos

Shhh! Don’t say that too loudly! If they get wind of it, they’ll spend the next week moaning about the lack of an International Men’s Day. And then, of course, a knee-jerk reaction about the International part, and how that’s part of trying to establish an emasculating one world government and turn America into France, Belgium, Ikealand or Dutchland or something.
flickerKuu

No it’s being overshadowed by Agriculture week.

Chuckhazard

I’d like to point out that the $3,000 number was in reference to the cost of contraception over the course of law school (3 years) not over a single year. Some of these medications are cheap, but some do cost $100/month or so. 3*12*100 = 3600.

kingsleyd

This isn’t a disaster for the Republicans, it’s publicity. It bolsters their resolve, reinforces the extreme right stance in the party, and draws liberals and Democrats into a heated fray where (1) they acknowledge and justify the insanity by engaging with it and (2) embarrass themselves by engaging with it, because you just CAN’T engage in this childish nonsense debate on a rational adult level. Liberal media and liberal people need to start ignoring this stuff rather than playing the game they’ve been invited to.

lknope

I couldn’t disagree more. Since 99% of women use contraception at some point, attacking women who use or advocate for the availability of contraception IS disasterous. Most people are happy with the role contraception plays in their lives so to take such an extreme stance on something most people happily use to their great benefit is not going to be at all helpful to their cause.

I also think it’s wrong to ignore the attacks on women considering it’s actual legislation that will be detrtrimental to women’s health and well being. If they were attacking women apropos of nothing, it might be better to ignore it, but they are attacking women with a specific cause in mind, in this particular case, for example, so health insurance companies don’t have to cover women’s reproductive health.
- kingsleyd
  
  I agree on your second point, and I guess to clarify I mean that we shouldn’t pretend this sentiment doesn’t exist and that it’s no real threat to society. But I think it would be more productive for liberal media, politicians and persons to promote freedom and decry attacks on civil liberties, peace and common sense in an impersonal way that ignores the right wing personalities who thrive on this kind of conflict. For example, in this case step up support and publicity for Planned Parenthood; encourage people to support worthy womens’ groups financially; point out upcoming undesirable legislation and try to mobilize voters against it; address the particular case of Sandra Fluke without even mentioning Limbaugh by name beyond the initial factual report of what happened. Engage in a positive way that doesn’t serve to glorify the wrong-doer in the eyes of his own supporters.
  - wysinwyg
    
    But I think it would be more productive for liberal media, politicians and persons to promote freedom and decry attacks on civil liberties, peace and common sense in an impersonal way that ignores the right wing personalities who thrive on this kind of conflict
    
    Once again, this is exactly why American liberals are losing.
    - kingsleyd
      
      I really have to disagree with that and well, ditto Tom Henthorn below. You can’t change their minds, but you can avoid playing their game. A large part of what makes the right so loud and so cohesive is that they realize they’re in a shouting match with the left, and the loudest, firmest voice in the shouting match wins. I think the American liberals are losing precisely because they are playing the conservatives’ game instead of pursuing their own beliefs with conviction and consistency.
    - wysinwyg
      
      I still disagree with you. I see no evidence that liberals are “playing the conservatives’ game.” I see that liberals have given Rush Limbaugh and similar commentators a pass on their poison for several decades now. I see where liberals give conservative politicians and various ideologues the benefit of the doubt instead of challenging these viewpoints, pointing out the lies, and saying to their faces: “Have you no shame?” Liberals have been the polite ones and that is why they are losing these moral victories, because they’re allowing conservative lies to become the background noise that everyone “knows” to be true.
    - Navin_Johnson
      
      True, America doesn’t like wimps.
    - kingsleyd
      
      I see your point and am very tempted by it. I’m just applying my earned knowledge of shouting matches from the last 44 years – the realization that no matter how much someone needs to be shouted down, you never accomplish anything by doing it. I believe that conservative hatemongers are just reinforced, martyred, and popularized by confrontation with the left. And the big weakness I see with the American political left is not that it’s unready to sneer and shout at conservatives, but that the politicians supposedly representing the liberals are very conservative themselves and won’t act on the hopes and principles of of liberal voters.
  - lknope
    
    That is a thoughtful response and clarification, thank you. I agree with most of it. Not the part about Limbaugh, though. I think we should point out his hateful nonsense and hopefully have him removed from the public ear. Someone with his level of vitriol should not be tolerated by society. Other people have lost their jobs as public figures for far lesser evils and he needs to go, as well.
- http://marjaerwin.livejournal.com/ Marja Erwin
  
  TRIGGER WARNING
  
  These sorts of misogynistic attacks only work when womyn can say “they’re not attacking me, they’re not attacking my friends, they’re only attacking some other womyn,” and work best if people think of the “other womyn” as “lesser womyn.”
  
  Slut-shaming is so common and so effective because few womyn think of themselves as sluts, but absolutely any womon can be denounced one way or another:
  
  If you screw men, you can be denounced as a slut.
  
  If you don’t screw men, you can be denounced as an uppity dyke.
  
  If you get raped, or even just beaten, they’ll say you were asking for it.
  
  And so on. I suspect any womon can be denounced at least one of these ways and most of us can be denounced a dozen different ways. And for some of us, our mere existence gets denounced as sexual sin.
  
  In this case, though, they screwed up. They denounced her for something that she has in common with the vast majority of womyn. And no they’re broadening the attack to go after a few people they missed the first time.
  - http://www.nathanhornby.com/ Nathan Hornby
    
    Don’t you think it brings MORE attention to the presence of the word ‘man’ in the word ‘woman’ when you consistently spell it wrong?
    
    It completely overshadowed your argument, which was good, by the way.
    - BlackPanda
      
      I was just about to pick you up on that. That’s just about the most annerying deloberate misspulling I’ve ever encoontared.
http://www.facebook.com/profile.php?id=1247842954 Tom Henthorn

Very good point. Some of these “talking points” are beyond childish, and we aren’t going to win these arguments with the sheer force of our rationality. Like the old saying: “you can’t reason someone out of something they weren’t reasoned into.”
Thad Boyd

No, this is the biggest misstep the Republican Party has made in its assumptions about the beliefs of the average American since it tried to forcibly keep Terri Schiavo on life support.

Somewhere Obama is grinning and saying “I can’t BELIEVE they fell for that.” Making a twenty-first century election a referendum on birth-control is fucking madness; it is a losing position. Yes, they’ll keep the fringe of the fringe that would have voted for a third Bush term if given the chance — but you can’t win a presidential election on that demographic, and you’ll lose seats in Congress on it too.
- kingsleyd
  
  I’ve come to expect the most perverse reactions possible from the public to the most extreme outrages of the American right. Here’s hoping that you are all right and I am wrong!
  - Thad Boyd
    
    I’d say in nearly all cases you’re right. But now and again they make a mistake. I think this is a huge mistake. A vast majority of Americans use some form of birth control at some point in their lives. And that’s leaving aside the other uses of the pill.
kingsleyd

Thanks everyone for civilized debate! I felt like I was on a different Internets until somebody started picking on Marja’s spelling. Phew. I was beginning to get dizzy and disoriented.

aaronmhill

Oh PLEASE tell me this can be classified as libel or some other form of defamation. I would *LOVE* to see some gigantic lawsuits fall out of this.

bardfinn

It would likely be considered battery if it were in the venue of the State of Texas. But, IANAL IANYL ATINLA.

greebo

I was shocked to hear interviews with prominent female Republicans this morning, describing Limbaugh’s choice of words as unfortunate. This is not an “unfortunate choice of words” we’re dealing with. It’s the frat house mentality raised to the level of political ideology. It’s not Limbaugh’s choice of words that matters; what matters is that Limbaugh and others like him have developed an arrogant, paternalistic worldview in which women aren’t fellow human beings, but objects to be used for their amusement (the request to see pornographic videos of Fluke was particularly revealing in that regard). It’s a worldview that that allows them to talk about women in this way, without any apparent conception of what is wrong with it.

millie fink

I was shocked to hear interviews with prominent female Republicans this morning, describing Limbaugh’s choice of words as unfortunate. This is not an “unfortunate choice of words” we’re dealing with.

I would ask in return, “Okay, since you disagree with Limbaugh’s word choices but not what he actually said, how would YOU describe a woman who supposedly sells her body and has sex multiple times per day?”
- flickerKuu
  
  I think we are disagreeing with Rush’s choice of being totally clueless about Birth Control, health, and a Capitol hill meeting. This has nothing to do with Rush’s definition of a prostitute. Are you seriously taking a serious issue and focusing on a tiny meaningless semantic argument? Sigh. Not wasting any more time with you…

http://marjaerwin.livejournal.com/ Marja Erwin

Now the right wing is going after her for a paper on health care and discrimination against lgbt folks. And a lot of us do have trouble getting health care. At one point in the paper she said insurance should cover transition-related care. Oh noes! A number of medical groups, including the American Medical Association, have declared that this can be medically necessary and have denounced the discrimination.

So naturally the right wing is denouncing the “sex changes” and the “mutilation” and denouncing us as well as our medical needs.

They’re not just attacking Ms. Fluke, they’re attacking every womon who needs treatment for endocrine and/or reproductive health, and they’re attacking every womon who dares to control her own body.

corollax

As a MtF transsexual, this issue hits particularly close to home. Unfortunately, there’s a number of factors that make this problem even harder than it appears at first glance.

1) This is not only a legitimate health issue, it’s a life-threatening one. Transgendered individuals have some of the highest rates for depression and suicidality of any demographic. The health community, including the AMA, has agreed that transition (to whatever degree the patient feels necessary) is essential in treating the problem.

2) Many transgendered children grow up in unsupportive families. They receive neither emotional nor financial support, and even if these children may in principle have insurance coverage through their families, they cannot take advantage of it.

3) With very few exceptions, these children cannot receive treatment until they come of age. This is, at the very earliest, after several years of physically and psychologically damaging hormones. The effects will be felt for the rest of their lives and for many will create issues in adjusting to their new gender role.

4) When these children do come of age, they have to be diagnosed by the pyschiatric community before receiving any treatment. In the (very likely) absence of medical coverage, this can quickly accumulate to hundreds of dollars in expense — at a time when they are least able to pay for it.

5) In many areas of the country, finding a sympathetic pyschiatrist is nearly impossible. I saw no fewer than five doctors, and was unable to receive a hormone prescription until I left the country. The only reason I was able to receive treatment at all was by ordering medication online.

6) Doing so risked deep vein thrombosis, pulmonary embolism, and cancer. These risks are manageable with appropriate medical conslutation, but this is obviously not an option for those who have to acquire it without prescription.

Ultimately, these issues have pushed me to leave the United States for a country that has universal health care coverage. Even though I am not yet a recipient, I already benefit from more reasonable medical costs and doctors genuinely interested in helping their patients. I dearly hope that Ms. Fluke continues her activism: We Appreciate It.

gtrjnky

The man is a pig as are his dittodouches.

mung0

I cannot understand why anyone is even engaging with the idea that adults don’t have sex, or that contraception is wrong.

Thad Boyd

Or that Rush’s listeners can’t pick out his obvious hypocrisy. (Course, they stuck with him through the drug addiction.)

Saw a post the other day suggesting that Rush’s listeners actually love his hypocrisy because it pisses liberals off so much. I have to say it’s an appealing theory.

GertaLives

It’s too bad so many of these idiots get exposure, but was I the only one reading the various quotes and repeatedly wondering “who?”

millie fink

You should get out more. A lot of those names have a LOT of followers.
- GertaLives
  
  Malkin is the only one familiar to me, and I’m more than happy to keep it that way. Windbags on either side of the aisle simply seek to inflame and succeed magnificently; I don’t feel compelled to lend them my ear.

mccrum

Have there been any comments from the gentleman (or gentlemen?) who is/are doing all this reported bedding ? Are we to understand they are not sluts or are we to praise them for their virility? I mean, she’s not having all this alleged sex by herself.

I mean, it’s 2012. Haven’t we really thought about doing something for equality between the sexes in the past 60 years?

http://www.nathanhornby.com/ Nathan Hornby

The US has a lot of nasty people in it (I’m not generalising, you’ve got some awesome people too).

I don’t like the conservatives in the UK, but the one’s you’ve got out there are just bad human beings. I mean, wow.

“rent-a-cooch” is an awesome phrase though, in isolation and in this case without context.

sean

That sad sack Michelle Malkin! She always tries to come up with a catchy insulting phrase- like “femagogue”- hoping it will become a buzzword, elevate her visibility to a Bill O’Reilly level among the right-wing audience, and allow her to really cash in. But she never can quite come up with one, leaving her as a second or third tier bloviator,just one more voice in the clamor.

morcheeba

I think Dante had a special level of hell for people who invent new derogatory words. You’ve got to be all sorts of messed up to do that.
- Thad Boyd
  
  The thing that strikes me as disingenuous about the recent advertiser exodus is that Rush has been referring to women as “feminazis” for, what, 20 years? You guys just now noticed he’s a misogynist?
  - http://twitter.com/fossilfuels Funk Daddy
    
    He did so regularly and usually referred to a group or group action, but he rarely targeted individuals, and never has gone on for episode after episode mischaracterizing a relative nobody, going on and on about her sexual preference and practice in vile language, claiming that these were things she said before a congressional hearing.
    
    Previously he was content to defame persons in a general sort of way, this last example is blatant crime against an innocent woman doing her civic duty in the accepted fashion.
IronEdithKidd

Wait, wait, wait… Are you saying that Malkin is somehow seeking *equality* with male blowhards?

What a fucking hypocrite that nasty woman is, but we already knew that. This is just a different flavor in the overall hypocritical stew.

http://goodsharer.com/ Aloisius

The truly sad thing is, a lot of average conservatives actually believe that this woman and women like her are sluts. I think that’s why you see people defend these schmucks. Heck, we have a couple here today.

MikeKStar

It’s pretty clear to me that this was a coordinated attack against Mr. Fluke from the beginning.

While Rush is the largest mouthpiece and the one to take the most criticism so far, the fact that other right wing outlets have taken up basically the same set of lies indicates that there is a head to this snake somewhere.

Teller

Well, no one’s called her that!
http://www.nathanhornby.com/ Nathan Hornby

The problem is that they’ve heard his argument, agree with his opinion and repeat it. It’s a fantastic testament to how little research any of these people do; as they’re all parroting the same misunderstanding resulting in cruel bigotry.

Even if that’s how they feel they’re targeting their bile at the wrong person.

Daniel Smith

It is a rare thing when a difference between the sides of a political argument are so clearly drawn. The conservative side has painted themselves clearly as the side that is against women’s rights, reproductive and otherwise, and willing to use any outrageous tactic to derail the discussion. May they be hoist on their own petard.

Republicans: The party that hates treating women equally

or perhaps

Republicans: The party that hates

Hakuin

”hatriots” is nice
- http://disqus.com/Kimmoth/ Kimmo
  
  Nice? It’s fucking EPIC.
  - Hakuin
    
    now you’re making me feel all bad for not coining it myself :(

http://twitter.com/OhMeadhbh Meadhbh Octopodidae

the thing i’ve noticed is the right has effectively shifted the conversation away from womens’ health to moral behavior. the specific policy issue that was being discussed concerned a HHS rule change which changed the co-pay for contraceptives in government mandated health insurance programs.

the administration argues that contraceptives are an integral part of any women’s health plan. while contraceptives for women are frequently “dual use” items that can be prescribed for purposes other than birth control, many argue that women & families health outcomes are improved when women (or couples) can better plan when pregnancies occur. also, it is seen by some to be a gender parity issue: the cost of a pregnancy or contraception is generally much greater for women than for men. by aggregating the cost of contraception and paying for it with premiums charged to both men and women, the costs are more equitably distributed across genders.

some religions (notably the catholic church) maintain that birth control is a sin. their argument is that by requiring employers to carry insurance covering contraceptives, they are forced to act contrary to religious teachings. houses of worship were given an explicit exemption though non-profits affiliated with religious organizations were not. so if the catholic church signs your paycheck, nothing’s changing; but catholic charities will have to change their coverage.

so on one hand you have womens’ health & gender equality. on the other you have the state (presumably) intruding on personal decisions of religious employers. no matter how this thing plays out, someone’s going to feel like they’re getting shafted (so to speak.)

if you frame this as a legal issue, religious conservatives have little to argue. the law gives the administration the power to make these kinds of determinations. if you frame it as a moral issue, the conservatives win.

just my $0.02. cheers.

Daniel Smith

Why, exactly, do the conservatives win if this is framed as a moral issue? Since when is it moral to deny health coverage to someone because a bunch of old men stuck in the bronze age and who think women are the source of all evil say so?
- Jerril
  
  Because setting up a dog and pony show to distract everyone from what was being discussed in the first place means that the public never get to hear that the pill is used to treat serious medical treatments. Which means the part of the public who just wants everyone who knows how to make the pill shot into space or something can keep on self-righteously arguing for it to be erased from the Earth EVEN if they would otherwise start questioning their absolutist stance.
  
  I’m very much in favor of the pill as birth control and think the people who are for preventing OTHER people from getting birth control are dangerous. But if you can get people to back down from an absolutist, extremist, fanatical stance, it’s a baby step towards tolerance. It’s like getting a racist to grudgingly realize “they” aren’t “all” like that. It’s a crack in the armor.
  
  You can’t just stop them from having what they want – you have to get them to want it less so they don’t try for it so hard (and obnoxiously), and hopefully eventually stop wanting it at all.
Hakuin

if primitive cults aren’t legally allowed to practice female genital mutilation on the children of their inmates, why then should the catholic minority be allowed to dictate policies that cause direct medical harm?
- flickerKuu
  
  And have nothing to do with their tired, 2000-year old good ol’ boys rulebook…
  
  …as they pop vigara covered under their insurance…
llamaspit

Here is $.02 back at you.
Insurance benefits are partial compensation for working, just as is a paycheck or vacation pay. The worker has earned that benefit and/or contributed additional money for it. The moral objections of the employer are meaningless in the equation because it is the employees decision to make use of the benefit that he/she has paid for.

The employer has no more right to register a moral objection to the health decisions of the employee than they do to object to how the employee chooses to spend the paycheck that the employee receives from them. Does the Catholic Church have the moral right to control that?

And lastly, if the employer is a Jehovah’s Witness, should they have the right to preclude blood transfusions due to moral objections? Or a Christian Scientist to prevent medications of any kind. This religious belief argument is nonsense. It’s a red herring to obscure the attempt to cripple movement to national health insurance.
- http://disqus.com/Kimmoth/ Kimmo
  
  This is the real reason for this epileptic fit masquerading as public debate.
  
  Red fucking herring. Everyone knows Libaugh’s an utter prick already, but that’s the only reason most people are talking about it.
  
  Ask yourselves, if this bullshit wasn’t filling the airwaves, what else might we be hearing about right now? You can bet the Republicans would rather you didn’t.

http://www.facebook.com/profile.php?id=1141863862 Kenneth James

Of course, this whole misogynist smear happens to totally align with near-term neoliberal agendas. Since the Republicans and the right in general have *absolutely nothing to offer* the general public by way of a cure for the current economic crisis that would not be a repetition of the very policies that caused the crisis in the first place, they fall back on vile misogyny to shore up their base. Calling women sluts and going after contraception is a *great* way of hiding the fact that they’ve got nothing. Absolutely nothing.

Thad Boyd

Except it’s a TERRIBLE way of hiding the fact that they’ve got nothing. It is a monumental misstep that is going to cost them a massive number of votes — not to mention hurting Rush’s bottom line as his advertisers trip over each other running away.
- http://twitter.com/fossilfuels Funk Daddy
  
  They cross the line in order to discern it, and push it back further.
  
  Making such statements and such extreme views a large part of the public discussion gives the illusion that a majority actually prefer their viewpoint.

Hakuin

has anyone done a proper study to see if convicted sex offenders are overwhelmingly Republican?

http://twitter.com/fossilfuels Funk Daddy

I don’t know that anyone has. But as conservative “values” are repressive, and repressed people eventually act out somehow, it would not surprise me.

There is almost always a fine, upstanding Republican leader or lawman getting caught acquiring young men and meth for personal use after leading the charge against homosexuality or serving on the front lines of the drug war

mmmwright

If the government is paying for health care – on any level – eventually they are going to want to interfere in it. I pay for my own health care and I get what I want. If the federal government is paying (i.e., using our taxpayer money) for it, then of course they are going to try to dictate how they want us to behave. Don’t they always? They always think they know what is best for us.

So I am rather astonished that anyone at all is surprised that the federal government is trying to interfere now.

Jerril

Speaking as someone who’s in a country where the government pays for healthcare – no, they don’t want to interfere with providing healthcare. They have a vested interest in stopping things that make people sick in the first place, not in stopping sick people from getting better.

Remember, the government is elected in. A great way to get elected OUT is by saying “We’re going to kick sick people out of hospital beds.” Everyone knows people who are or have been in hospital – especially the older demographic, who vote a heck of a lot more than 20 year olds.

It’s like going after seniors supplements – every government that even MUSES about reducing Old Age Security payments promptly gets defeated. The seniors hear about it, and then the seniors vote them out. Poof.

Insurance companies don’t get voted out if they don’t pay up.

What the government does when its involved in healthcare provision is make sure birth control IS covered, because stopping people from getting sicker keeps their costs down. Healthy citizens are hard working citizens that earn more money and pay more taxes. Healthy, happy citizens with jobs don’t want to change who’s in charge.

The government is OBSESSED with getting people health care.
- http://twitter.com/fossilfuels Funk Daddy
  
  Yep, for government to have the benefit that preventative care provides is awesome.
  
  You in Canada too? Let’s not forget that we pay for healthcare via our taxes, because stating that government pays for healthcare is playing into the right-wing arguments against universal healthcare.
  
  I’ve benefitted from the healthcare system here, and after being born and living 30 years in the US, I now ENJOY paying taxes.
  
  Seriously, it makes me happy.
  - teapot
    
    Yeah… I live in Australia (where healthcare is covered) and I laugh as this ridiculous debate rages. It belies logic why any party would go out on a platform of not providing healthcare. It’s like looking into a portal into Dickensian England or something. History will frown on the Republicans of today like we from on the Southern slave owners of yesteryear.
http://www.flickr.com/photos/stefan_e_jones/ Stefan Jones

HEAR HEAR! Interfering with health care should be left to the states.

The ignorant, arrogant, sexist bastards in state legislators know far better how to keep the women folk in line. They can customize their laws to better humiliate, deprive, and belittle people. All in the name of morality and “respect for Life.”
llamaspit

Your insurance plan must be different than mine. My company fights tooth and nail to control what services I receive. Their policy is to make more money by curtailing their coverage at every opportunity. They keep armies of lawyers to enforce the incredibly complicated and obscure provisions of the contract. They also willingly screw the doctor who makes the slightest misstep in protocol. No one gets exactly what they want from the current system.
- flickerKuu
  
  Yes and these d-bags all want “guberment” out of the decisions . Could you imagine what your health care plan would be if your company was left to decide what was covered? The people left in the GOP are so brain dead they think this will all work out fine. Yeah- for the company, but let the people die. Typical GOP line of thought.
Thad Boyd

If private industry is paying for health care – on any level – eventually they are going to want to interfere in it. I get my health care through my company and I get what they want. If my company is paying (i.e., working out a deal with the insurance company) for it, then of course they are going to try to dictate how they want us to behave. Don’t they always? They always think they know what is best for us.

So I am rather astonished that anyone at all is surprised that for-profit health insurance costs too much and provides inadequate coverage.

http://www.disoriented.net/ angusm

If Republicans don’t approve of women having sex, then women shouldn’t have sex with Republicans.

Green Ghost

Didn’t the women in an African country stop having sex to get the men to stop fighting? I think it worked. This would work best if congressmen’s wives started the ball rolling. Wouldn’t THAT be a headline!
- Daniel Smith
  
  There’s always Lysistrata if you’re looking for inspiration
http://disqus.com/Kimmoth/ Kimmo

Hear hear.

TooGoodToCheck

Practically every one of the slurs in the original post seem to ignore this simple fact:

more sex does not equal more birth control.

I’m kind of appalled to think of the national conversation being significantly influenced by anyone who is unaware of or who chooses to ignore this. It’s so wrong it’s bizarre – like having the immigration debate driven by people who are most concerned that foreigners are going to use up all our air.

Brainspore

Michelle Malkin married in 1993 (at age 23) and has had only two children in almost 20 years of marriage. This implies that at least one of the following scenarios is likely:

1. Malkin rarely has sex with her husband. This could help explain why she thinks any woman who would have sex for non-reproductive purposes is a “slut.”
2. Malkin (or her husband) have fertility issues that preclude any need for birth control. This could help explain her apparent ignorance of how birth control works.
3. Malkin has used some form of birth control and should know better. This would make her a big fat hypocrite just like many of her peers.

(NOTE: normally I wouldn’t attack the character of another person based on speculation about their sex life, but I make an exception here since she did so first.)
- Teller
  
  4. The rhythm method + luck. Just sayin’.
  - Brainspore
    
    Also possible, but since she and her peers established that we’re now allowed to make sweeping assumptions about the sex lives of others based on scant information I’m going with #3.
    
    In fact, I’d also wager good money that her employer’s health insurance covers birth control.
http://www.flickr.com/photos/stefan_e_jones/ Stefan Jones

”Facts are stupid things.” — Ronald Reagan, misquoting John Adams and yet setting the standard for his party for over a generation.
- http://twitter.com/fossilfuels Funk Daddy
  
  Isn’t Reagan great… for quotes that show you how not to be? ”If an individual wants to discriminate against Negroes or others in selling or renting his house, it is his right to do so”
http://disqus.com/Kimmoth/ Kimmo

It’s so wrong it’s bizarre – like having the immigration debate driven by people who are most concerned that foreigners are going to use up all our air.

Been following the immigration ‘debate’ in Australia, have you?

flickerKuu

And people wonder why we think Right Wingers are total douchebags…. Sigh… Losing faith in humanity. People are so darn ignorant.

atimoshenko

The difference between the actions of Maher and Limbaugh is clear to anyone who bothers to look.

It’s one thing to call a person you don’t like names. It may or may not be juvenile, but it’s just a way to express one’s displeasure. E.g. “Obama is a c*cksucker”.

It’s quite another thing to try to attempt to discredit a person/engage in character assassination by aggressively criticising an unrelated type of behaviour or affiliation. E.g. “How dare that n*gger think he can be President?”

One is acceptable, the other is not.

What Rush and his ilk are saying is that women with an active sex life do not deserve to have their opinions taken into account. Only they are not honest enough to say it outright (I guess even they understand on some level how ridiculous such an opinion is). Instead, they want to repeatedly insinuate it by repeating disparaging allegations against someone they do not like.

EDIT: There is also the fact that, for the same reason we would not tolerate a grown man beating up a little girl, the amount of effort pundits (who, by definition, have a decent amount of public exposure) should spend attacking an individual should be a function of that individual’s own public exposure (and, hence, ability to fight back if desired).

AsteriskCGY

Something I read somewhere that I’d like verified here. http://campaign2012.washingtonexaminer.com/article/gop-dems-played-games-over-sandra-fluke/408036

Fluke was ostensibly denied because the hearing regulated only one speaker and their first choice, the Chair from the Separation of Church and State Flynn, was their first choice but was swapped at the last minute, and then not allowed by Issa, is the reasoning behind her denial.

Granted her opinion would’ve been just as valid and undeniable without a vet, but should this rule be pointed out anyway?

hakuin

heh heh heh! http://mediamatters.org/iphone/blog/201203080008

bardfinn

Let me just re-iterate A comment I made three-and-a-half years ago:
Republicans are racist, sexist, religiously bigoted, Willing to hijack the government to abrogate others’ First Amendment rights while claiming to protect them, homophobes. And this is merely their social policies. We’re all feeling the results of their fiscal policies.

This needs to be the time that their “place” in modern society is relegated to the same “place” we reserve for KKK adherents, neo-Nazis, and sociopaths. They, those that pay them, and those that support them need to be told, in none-uncertain ways, that they are actively doing evil, and we aren’t buying it.

Mark_Frauenfelder

It’s disgusting that Bill Maher called her those names, but it’s also ridiculous to compare Maher’s name-calling with Limbaugh’s “repulsive and hateful obsession with Sandra Fluke,” as Xeni so aptly put it.

http://pulse.yahoo.com/_GTV44UKNIZYLJARU66KLRW43DE disasta from alaska

@bevatron repairman: he’s also called obama a pussy with nary a peep of outrage on the left either. if you can’t discern a difference between a maher insult of a famous/powerful(?) public figure and a limbaugh lie filled, 3+ day hatefest meant to bully a private citizen and demean women in general, you are pretty dense.

wysinwyg

Maybe “the left” doesn’t take Bill Maher seriously in the first place? All the lib blogs I know are merciless with misogyny including misogyny aimed at right wingers. And they pretty much all think Bill Maher is a douchebag. So what’s the problem?

millie fink

Wow Bevatron, second comment! Whoever is paying you to astroturf will be mighty pleased with your speedy work. (And if you’re not being paid, you’re still acting like a total tool.)

Joe Tory

Bill Maher called Sarah Palin a “dumb t***” and a “c***” — with nary a peep of outrage on the left.

What’s worse is the false outrage by leftist/feminists who take umbrage when other leftists are sexist or racist or whatever.

As a conservative, I can see right through their ploy – feminists who merely condemn abhorrent remarks made by pundits on the left isn’t enough because we are not allowed to really listen to any feminist, lest we become weak and European. Renounce feminism and perhaps we will believe you, right Bevatron? ;-)

http://www.nathanhornby.com/ Nathan Hornby

Yes, but Sarah Palin isn’t a particularly good example of a human being, and she’s not only a public figure, but a political one (historically ripe for ridicule).

This is just nasty people bullying someone, subtly different, but different none the less.

http://benjscott.com thunderhammer

Bill who? Oh yeah, some guy nobody really watches. Yeah, I guess the fact I never heard about that and thus didn’t get outraged totally invalidates my disgust with Rush. Just to be clear: that was sarcasm and you are an idiot.

Lobster

Limbaugh is an ass. Maher is an ass. What’s your point? That we can’t hold a right-wing pundit accountable for his actions unless we also find a left-wing pundit to crucify?

EH

Since you have more Soviet Space propaganda posters than Bill Maher has called Palin bad names, does that make you a communist?

Thad Boyd

”LOOK OVER THERE!”

Amy Wright

One big difference here: Bill Maher is a comedian, totally different rule book.

foobar

I don’t know what a t*** or a c*** are, but Sarah Palin is legitimately rather dumb.

Paul Renault

’Nary a peep’?

Give me about five minutes, I’m sure I could google a bunch of ‘em…

blueelm

No, because this is not actually what the testimony was about. So it is not a similar comparison. Just you being uninformed.

Trent Hawkins

depends, does his dick explode once a month if he doesn’t wear a condom?

blueelm

Here. Since you like repeated things, have some copypasta.

She [Fluke] testified before a small, Democrat-led hearing after she was cut out of the actual birth control/insurance discussion. Her testimony was about a friend of hers who, because her insurance did not cover birth control, lost an ovary due to an ovarian cyst.This somehow translates into “I, myself, personally, am having so much sex I can’t afford birth control, and so I want the government to pay for it.”This is wrong for multiple reasons.It was about a friend, not her. To say her testimony was about her personally is factually incorrect.
Sex had nothing to do with the testimony – her friend lost an ovary because of medical condition that was left untreated. A medical condition that was completely treatable, but wasn’t, because her insurance wouldn’t cover it. To say that her testimony was about her being “a slut” or “a prostitute” is factually incorrect.
Even if she was having loads of sex, she would still only have one pill a day, not one pill per sex act, so to say “I’m having so much sex I can’t afford birth control” is completely erroneous. The Pill is not Viagra or condoms. To say that she is such “a slut” that she constantly needs more pills is factually incorrect.
The current political debate is not “should the government pay for birth control?” The debate is “should insurance companies, that people and their employers pay for, on their own, be required to cover birth control?” To say that Sandra Fluke wants the government to pay for her birth control is factually incorrect.
Religious organizations do not want to have birth control covered by their insurance, even for employees not of their faith, even if their employees never actually use their insurance to cover birth control. By this logic, they should also not pay their employees, because they could use that money to pay for birth control out of pocket. To say that this issue is about religious freedom and not about women’s health is disingenuous, as Ms. Fluke’s testimony demonstrates.Hopefully this makes things a little clearer.

lknope

That’s not an apt comparison. A better one would be a man testifying to congress that ED is a medical problem that should covered by his health insurance. Oh, wait, no one has to do that because Viagra is already covered by health insurance, no questions asked. The fact that women have to fight to have their reproductive health covered by their health insurance while all of men’s health is covered by the same plan is the actual double standard here.

http://twitter.com/OhMeadhbh Meadhbh Octopodidae

comparing birth control pills to condoms isn’t an exact comparison. many women (such as myself) use birth control pills for reasons other than contraception. condoms do not have this dual use. also, condoms are not as expensive as some forms of birth control for women. so, if someone said they were spending $3k on condoms, that would be pretty amazing. sadly, spending $3k on women’s birth control is not outside the realm of possibility.

wysinwyg

You’ve apparently fallen for every lie to come out of this issue.
1. Having more sex does not require more birth control. Birth control is a scheduled thing, you take one pill a day. No extras if you have sex more, no skippies if you’re only getting laid once a week. In other words, the amount of money a woman spends on birth control is fixed regardless of how much she has sex. Unlike, say, condoms.
2. Fluke was not asking Congress to pay for her birth control. She was testifying to the effect that birth control constitutes preventative care. OB/GYNs everywhere agree with her, you can find plenty of stuff from real healthcare professionals online to back this position up. And as a consequence of birth control constituting preventive care she was testifying that the legal mandate for insurance companies (not the “gummint”) to cover birth control is justified and that there shouldn’t be special dispensation from this requirement for Catholic organizations. OB/GYNs (medical experts) agree with her here too. Since she’s already paying the insurance premiums, technically she’s asking Congress to ensure that her employer provides care that she has already paid for. If you’ve ever had a checkup that was paid for even in party by insurance then you’re just as guilty as she is in this respect.
3. There are many health reasons besides sex that women take birth control. Sometimes it is prescribed to deal with hormonal imbalances, sometimes it is used to control heavy menstruation that could be a medical risk to the woman. Sometimes it is used to prevent or regulate ovarian cysts.

This is all stuff you could have found out with 20 minutes of googling. You’d do better educating yourself before offering your opinion.

http://www.nathanhornby.com/ Nathan Hornby

It’s a different argument, for one.

And secondly, even if that were the argument, in many civilised countries contraceptives for both men and women are provided under health care schemes. It’s generally considered a good thing to reduce unwanted pregnancy and STD spreading.

People are going to have sex either way, this isn’t about funding a sex life.

Do you think that distributing contraceptives in Africa is meant to encourage people to have more sex?

snowmentality

If condoms were generally covered by health insurance, but Congress wanted to pass a law that your employer could delete that coverage from your health insurance if they didn’t think you should use condoms, and a guy went before Congress to say “Look, my health insurance should cover this, my employer shouldn’t be able to unilaterally deny me this coverage” — then you’d have an analogy.

And actually, no, I don’t think he would have gotten weeks of totally disgusting personal abuse about saying that. There’s no stereotype that a guy who has lots of sex should be ashamed of it.

Blaise Pascal

Actually, if “enough was enough” then we’d not be witnessing the continued and deliberate erosion of women’s rights. Even we “mutants and geeks” need to stay informed about issues which marginalize and disempower us…men or women.

DreamboatSkanky

It’s a shame they hold you down and force your hand to click on a headline that clearly reads as something you have had enough of. How many of them does it take to pry your eyelids open as the offending article fires its awful photons at you?

chenille

Just to check: you mean enough is enough about Limbaugh, his three days of defamation, fake apology, advertiser losses, and assorted conservative responses, even though they make an important and ongoing story.

You don’t mean enough is enough about Maher, whose obnoxious comment about Palin was a while ago and has been brought up way more than three or four times.

http://www.facebook.com/profile.php?id=1247842954 Tom Henthorn

Damn well said. Thank you for writing this.

http://www.facebook.com/kbyrd88 Kelly Byrd

Not my problem…if you don’t have money to pay for insurance, why exactly has it become my problem again?! I don’t have insurance and I have ovarian cysts…do I expect other people to pay for my doctor bills?!? No! And, yes, it would be other people paying for my doctor bills you can disguise it under the “government” if you want to, but who is the government and where do they get their money? The people of the United States, that is where. Plus, if you actually read the transcript she uses herself and her friend as an example…so no, it’s not just about her friend who lost an ovary.

KMc Stu

Excellent!

PublicNightmare

I would just add that the only reason Birth Control was ever added to insurance was because MEN wanted Viagra added to insurance. Birth control was paid for out of pocket by women since the 1960s. Only in the late 1990s did they start selling viagra. When the 50-80 year old congressional men wanted to make Viagra part of insurance, the outcry was the pill was never paid for by insurance and until it is Viagra would not be.

Congress decided to add both. Now, these aging men (who still need viagra) want to keep it and dump women’s contraception. Oddly, the argument the Extremist Right is making is that the government shouldn’t be in the sex business…while conveniently forgetting it was the government who approved both previously still would be with viagra.

Take them both away from insurance to be fair.

Agreed that insurance and people are paying for their OWN contraception here…and the government has nothing to do with it. All it takes is one talking idiot to lie to their followers to have a slew of ignorant people walking around spouting those lies instead of thinking for themselves.

Seems like the Extremist Right & Government are all about sex these days. Same sex, women’s contraception, marriage and etc.

BTW, I am a Republican and I approve this message.

millie fink

Troll.

wysinwyg

Why can’t conservatives ever make their own arguments? Oh right, they’re fundamentally opposed to people thinking for themselves.

http://twitter.com/JonnyMiskatonic JohnnyMiskatonic

Any argument that cites ‘American Thinker’ is automatically lost. Because they’re morons, that’s why. Your topic: ”American Thinker” is neither. Discuss.

http://twitter.com/JonnyMiskatonic JohnnyMiskatonic

“I do not think one type of freedom should be allowed to trump another.” Good for you. I’m sure segregationists everywhere agree. Why should a black person’s freedom to sit at a lunch counter trump the diner owner’s freedom to refuse them service?

mccrum

That’s exactly how I feel about that old guy I saw getting that stent installed for his heart. I’m not related to him and he’s not my grandfather, why did he have to eat all those cheeseburgers!

Sometimes “the pill” is given out for medical reasons. That is the topic.

lknope

If you really gave a rat’s ass about your hard earned money, you would want people to have preventive care. That costs a lot less in the long run.

http://www.youtube.com/user/Freethinkersanon Christopher

Next time make sure you read the available information before you reply. What you’re offering here is what’s called a non sequitur.

chgoliz

If you were conservative in nature rather than reactionary and pro-fascist, you would understand Benjamin Franklin’s maxim “a stitch in time saves nine”.

http://www.nathanhornby.com/ Nathan Hornby

Maybe if you actually gathered the facts about what this story is about, rather than simply watching Fox news, you’d be able to answer that question yourself, but then you wouldn’t be asking it, because you’re making an argument that’s irrelevant to this situation.

Also, fuck off.

Thad Boyd

How is it a woman’s right for me to pay for her birth control?

Because that’s what insurance IS, you ninny: a bunch of people paying for other people’s healthcare. If you didn’t have people who didn’t need healthcare paying into the system, it wouldn’t work. If you have ANY kind of prescription coverage, then guess what, dude? That’s other people, people who don’t need your medication, paying for your medication.

Sex is a choice.

The thing that inevitably irritates me about people who say this: have you not actually considered that sometimes it isn’t?

davidasposted

How is it your right for me to pay for your choice to drive on public roads? I’m not riding in your car with you. If you want to drive, either fund the development of an alternative infrastructure or risk driving your car through someone else’s private land. Leave me and my hard earned money out of it.

flickerKuu

Please show me where you are paying for anyone’s birth control. This is anti-fact #1 with you people and your baselesss arguments.

Please go look up the health benefits of birth control which have NOTHING to do with sex, and everything to do wtih ovarian cancer. Then come back and apologize to all of us for being so ignorant. Thanks.

wysinwyg

The insurance is provided already by the employer in this case. It’s unfortunate that your employer does not provide health insurance for you. I would really like your medical issues to get treated in a timely fashion. Not because I like you, based on your comment I would probably viscerally dislike you as a person. But when preventative care isn’t taken deadbeats like you end up in emergency rooms without paying for care and that really is paid for by the taxpayer, i.e. me.

Incidentally, when an employer provides health coverage that is deducted from the person’s paycheck. So Fluke IS paying for her own health insurance but she isn’t allowed to choose what it covers. Based on your attitude I would think you’d be in support of Fluke getting what she paid for.

Marc45

That’s a typical simplistic response to a much more complicated issue. When people have access to affordable, preventative healthcare, costs go down for everyone (employers, families and governments alike). A simple preventative healthcare issue, like birth control (it’s not just about having sex), will reduce the number of sexually transmitted diseases, keep more unwanted kids out of foster homes and off welfare, and basically reduce the amount of repressed angst in our society (sex is a great stress reliever).

So, yes, it is YOUR problem whether you like it or not.

http://www.nathanhornby.com/ Nathan Hornby

It’s sad that you consider medical treatment something that shouldn’t be available to everyone.

I suppose you also don’t think that the government should pay for education, the police force or subsidise scientific research?

It might surprise you to learn tat in much of the civilised world it’s considered a basic human right to have access to medical facilities irrelevant of your income. Maybe it would surprise you more to learn that the cost of this service at an individual level probably equates to what you spend on private medical insurance. So what you;re actually saying is that you’d rather pay the same that you already are, as long as only YOU are receiving treatment.

Not to mention, of course, that this has absolutely nothing to do with tax dollars, and is about private medical insurance.

Thad Boyd

Kelly,

If your cyst gets so bad that you have to have an ovary removed, then yes, taxpayers are paying for your ER care.

And, not to put too fine a point on it, they’re paying a hell of a lot more than they would have paid just to buy you birth control in the first damn place.

Assuming they were paying for your birth control for some reason. I’m not entirely sure how that’s relevant to this conversation since we’re talking about PRIVATE insurers.

But the point is, if you really want to do the taxpayers a favor and save us money in medical expenses, get your condition treated before you have to go to the ER for it.

davidasposted

Not that it will matter to you, but you should know that people who live in civilized countries, ones that feature universal access to health care to ensure the happiness and well-being of their citizens, read your post with a mixture shock and pity.

PublicNightmare

The government doesn’t pay insurance. Insurance companies pay it.

teapot

The world’s truly developed countries decided government-assisted healthcare for their citizens was the ethically right thing to do decades ago. Then there was America.

Get a brain moran.

wysinwyg

You’re right. But the argument you link to assiduously avoids actually engaging with the actual motivations of liberals and is basically a hatchet job. If you were capable of thinking for yourself you’d read what we have to say and respond to that instead of linking to some third party smear job that ALSO fails to engage with the arguments.

In other words, you really are a troll.

Baldhead

You read that drivel and agree with it? Wow. Just wow. Seriously, not letting employers make the decision about what medical procedures are or are not covered is not even close to the same thing as forcing and Othrodox University to serve pork. And of course invoking the phrase “sharia law” at the end is one of the most insane red herring arguments I’ve ever seen. I don’t understand how “religious freedom” can be used to defend behavious that blatantly tramples other people’s freedoms, both religious and health. You have the freedom to use or not use contraceptives as you choose. You do not have the freedom to tell someone else they can’t, or to put roadblocks in the way of people getting them. That isn’t about religon, it’s about being an asshole.

Hakuin

I, for one am prepared to accept that that you are not indeed a troll, but in point of fact have made a purely voluntary and considered choice to be evil.

Thad Boyd

Saying “You’re just calling me a troll because I have a different opinion” is pretty much a dead giveaway that you are in fact a troll.

BTW Limbaugh’s fanboys call themselves “dittoheads”. So yes, mindlessly repeating somebody else’s opinions is kinda the point.

EH

Correction: Rush has made two fake apologies now.

http://dougsamu.wordpress.com doug rogers

or does his head explode when his dick does?

bcsizemo

The TSA would have a field day with that…

Jerril

Bad comparison. A man who doesn’t get viagra doesn’t have a testicle become riddled with cysts and need to be removed surgically.

Not getting viagra doesn’t result in castration.

Not getting hormonal supplements caused the presenters friend to have an ovary surgically removed – she was partially castrated.

And why was this rather necessary medical treatment denied, despite the fact that this woman is PAYING for medical insurance to cover MEDICAL expenses and MEDICAL treatment? Because it suppresses a womans fertility.

Of course, all kinds of medicine reduce fertility in both sexes , but some are forbidden because they work particularly well on women.

Which is just nuts.

I’ve been on the pill since I was in grade five for crippling dysmenorrhea. For men who don’t get it – imagine getting kicked in the balls every hour or so for five to seven days a month, every month, combined with severe blood loss. Fortunately I’m in Canada, and both the public and private insurance plans are happy to cover my pills – probably because if they didn’t, I’d be on medical disability until I was old enough to convince the doctors to give me a hysterectomy.

Oh, fun fact: even in Canada, doctors won’t give you a hysterectomy for anything but a immediately-life-threatening condition until your 40-ish “just in case you want babies later”. Loosing so much blood every month that you need blood transfusions doesn’t count – you can get blood transfusions, you don’t need a hysterectomy!

Yeah. Bitter.

Jerril

Sorry, started ranting there. I totally agree that with men being able to get viagra covered by insurance (for sexual purposes, it’s actually good for a few other things too) there’s clearly an imbalance.

chgoliz

I disagree.

ikonag could have found sufficient info with about 20 SECONDS of googling.

Thad Boyd

Yeah, the “she’s having so much sex that she needs all these pills” is particularly bizarre.

And yet another example of Limbaugh being obviously disingenuous, since as somebody who’s been married four times and has no children he quite clearly understands how birth control works.

Baldhead

general, that article didn’t even begin to address the issue. There wasn’t a counter- argument, strong or otherwise. Honestly, though, since the case here is religious groups wanting to control what their employees can do health- care wise (and apparently just women) I simply don’t see a good argument for that. Your religion doesn’t give you the right to force other people to live as you want them to. Consider if you get your way, then get a job under a Christian Scientist, and then need surgery. Ooops, the health insurance you get won’t pay for it, because your employer doesn’t believe in it.

wysinwyg

No, of course my judgment isn’t final. But when I see you link to a piece that doesn’t in any way engage with actual liberal thought but instead relies on lies and insinuation to smear liberals (presumably so that conservatives can feel good about ignoring the actual arguments) I’m confident in dismissing it as irrelevant trolling.

I’m curious. Do you even understand what my argument is? Can you come up with your own response to it, one that actually addresses the argument instead of deflecting? Maybe the reason I haven’t heard a strong argument contrary to my own is that conservatives never seem to be able to offer any relevant arguments at all

Instead of talking shit you could just prove me wrong. But that would require you to read and think for yourself. I won’t hold my breath.

Jubilex

@ Baldhead

It’s not just women – the argument here is about a woman’s health issue – but my employer is religious and won’t cover the cost of a vasectomy as well. Frankly it’s stupid.

And as someone who had medication for my five year old daughter (years ago) denied because it was possibly for birth control – I think this is stupid. I could have argued the case – but you know what – my employer has no right to know *anything* about my daughters health or medical issues.

wysinwyg

I don’t buy into your premise that organizations have “freedom” in the first place. Employers in this sense are not persons so there is no freedom to abridge, no morals or ethics to contradict.

Until the Catholic church starts paying taxes they should stay the hell out of politics in the first place.

Not to mention the fact that millions of Americans simply don’t have the option of walking away from their jobs. I would think you conservative types would get this since you’re always crying about “personal responsibility.” If you have a kid and a mortgage you can’t necessarily afford to take a principled stand about something like this — you need to keep paying your bills and you need health coverage for you, your spouse, and your child.

llamaspit

Exactly! My freedom to drive 150 mph when I feel like it is curtailed by your right not to be run over. Or my right to build a 10 story high rise next door to your single family home is stalled by zoning laws. We make these distinctions between rights all the damn time. It’s a Paulista kind of a statement that keeps getting repeated despite making no sense.

llamaspit

It seems to me that the Catholic Church has a lot of options according to your logic. They have the freedom to hire only workers who agree with them. They have the freedom to hire only male workers and offer no family insurance plans. They have the freedom to refuse federal dollars. They also have the freedom to join the 21st century, but that is a different argument.

Ultimately, it is the workers who actually pay for the insurance cost, either directly or as part of compensation. The employer has no right to try to control what the worker does with the benefits, any more than they can mandate 80 hour work weeks or refuse to comply with any other workplace standard.

Bevatron Repairman

I’ve said what I wanted to say — and I got more or less the reaction I expected — but I’ve been commenting regularly on BoingBoing for several years. I may well be — in your estimation — a tool, but I am an hobbyist tool not a professional one.

bcsizemo

”Take them both away from insurance to be fair. ”

This times a million.

http://www.facebook.com/Catgrin Christine Fisher

I actually used Viagra as a comparison in another discussion because, just like hormonal birth control, it has other prescriptive uses. People automatically think of Viagra as “the stiffy drug” but it was first researched to lower blood pressure, and now is used in cases of stroke and heart attack. Oddly, no one questions prescriptive access to Viagra…

Women should not feel apologetic about the alternate medical uses of birth control, as it’s a unique class of drug that assists with a wide range of problems, some wholly unrelated to reproduction. Making the argument that removing our access to it attacks our health rights is, in itself, a valid claim.

People in general should realize that access to birth control EITHER as a contraceptive or for one of its many other uses, may improve health, save money, and even save lives.

flickerKuu

Not so bizzare when you consider:

(1) Only a prostitute would have sex with Rush
(2) Rush has always had to give a pill to anyone he sleeps with or they won’t.
(3) Rush is a known Drug addict and pill abuser

flickerKuu

Ummm. No. Wrong. The Pill is PREVENTATIVE health care. Viagra is for fun.

Dump Viagra, keep the pill. It’s obvious.

http://marjaerwin.livejournal.com/ Marja Erwin

Access to ordinary health care shouldn’t depend on employers or insurers. Unfortunately, in America, it does, and the insurers manage to negotiate discounts for themselves and price-hikes for those of us who are uninsured or uninsurable. And that’s not to mention how the pharma industry extends the patent system and gets out-of-patent alternatives withdrawn.

We end up with a system that’s broken, that costs more than in other countries, that costs more than many of us can afford, and that gives employers control over people’s health care. It’s wrong. It means many of us get sick, and some die, due to lack of access to health care.

Access to the treatments we need should not depend on a boss’s permission. As long as we’re stuck with this broken system, we’re all screwed, but policies which limit the bosses’ choices are probably better than policies which help the bosses limit our choices.

bcsizemo

@flickerKuu:disqus
Preventative for pregnancy? I mean that was the original design of the pill, and what it is most prescribed for today.

But of course we all know the pill really prevents all those random and unwanted pregnancies. Those ones that just randomly occur without warning….the ones that occur without having sex. <-you know that thing you do to get pregnant.

And why exactly do you need the pill if you don't have Viagra?…I mean if he can't get it up you are wasting money on the pill.

flickerKuu

Insurance companies don’t pay themselves. People pay into insurance companies and plans.

penguinchris

Can I just stick this into the conversation somewhere since no one’s addressed it – besides Viagra having non-sex-related medical uses, I think people are not realizing the effects of erectile dysfunction by framing Viagra as something old guys take to have fun. It’s not necessarily something they take to have extra fun – it may be something they need to take to have any kind of fun or sexual release at all.

Erectile dysfunction doesn’t necessarily cause physical health issues, directly anyway, but it can have severe psychological effects including depression and can cause huge problems in relationships.

Both men and women should be able to understand this if they think about it. Can you imagine having a normal sex drive but almost never being able to satisfy it? Not being able to get it up is really, really devastating, even if it just happens once because you’re stressed or something – but for ED sufferers it happens all the time or at least most of the time. I’m not an expert but have trouble getting it up if I’m nervous… which is every time I’ve been with a new partner. And that’s among the most depressing things in a young man’s world.

Taking a bottle of Viagra with you to have a wild weekend with child prostitutes in Costa Rica, as Rush Limbaugh almost certainly did, is something entirely different of course.

I don’t mean to sidetrack anything, but there’s been a consistent misunderstanding of why people might take Viagra.

teapot

Though I agree that the asterisked-words are not appropriate – to be fair, the dumb part is undeniable…. she basically writes the material every time she opens her mouth. Calling someone an idiot is not misogynistic unless a person does it to every woman they meet.

http://marjaerwin.livejournal.com/ Marja Erwin

One of Ms. Fluke’s friends lost an ovary. I think that counts as medical harm. There were treatments that could have prevented this, but the insurance wouldn’t cover those treatments, because the same treatments also work for birth control, and the insurance ha an exclusion for that.

Daniel Smith

The risks to a woman’s overall health are greater through pregnancy than through taking the pill. The statistics make it clear that it is riskier to have children than to take birth control. For women who do not wish to have children for whatever reason, they are being asked to put themselves at a greater risk to their health by denying them access to birth control and risking an unwanted pregnancy than allowing them to use it. Please read:

http://boingboing.net/2012/02/18/birth-control-is-safer-than-pr.html

Daniel Smith

Are you being deliberately obtuse, or can you truly not understand that pregnancy, as wonderful and fulfilling an event as it is when desired, also has undesirable effects on women’s bodies, and that childbirth is a trauma to the body of the mother. Your weak strawbaby of trying to make the false equivalency of babies to tumors falls flat, as you are the only one making that argument. It is profoundly ignorant not to recognize that men and women are physically different and require different medical care, or to dismiss women’s reproductive health issues in the offensive way the conservatives have decided to do. Unwanted pregnancy, as well as being an unnecessary threat to the womans health, can be destructive to both the mother and child for a very long time.

teknocholer

Hakuin says “sex offenders”, you read “homosexuals”. Think about that.

teapot

No it’s bad to be a public homophobe, milking votes from the bigoted constituents while actually being a homosexual yourself. Dishonesty is usually not considered a positive character trait of senators. Try again without the straw man.

Obama is right that you need expensive gas because the government is subsidising your fuel costs… meaning that every slack-jawed doofus drives a huge truck (to compensate) when they could actually get by with a much smaller vehicle. I thought you die-hard conservatives were against government subsidies? Oh that’s right… it’s only the subsidies you don’t use that you have a problem with.

Furthermore, if you had any critical thinking skills you would understand that the two quotes you posted are not contradictory or hypocritical. Americans do need to use less gas (which would result from higher prices) and no president would want high gas prices going into an election because everyone uses gas and it is an easy talking point for simpletons to mention and rally around.

You’re a troll and they say I shouldn’t feed you, but you need to know that if you want to be taken seriously by anyone you will have to try harder than your present laughable ‘contributions’.

teapot

Your CAPS make your LOOK like a COMPLETE MORON. If a PERSON is SICK then they have NO CHANCE of PURSUING a HAPPY and SUCCESSFUL life. You PROVED yourself WRONG in TWO short PARAGRAPHS – NICE job!

Please fuck off to wherever you normally spread your idiotic opinion.

bardfinn

A sky full of innernets. You win. Take them.

Conservative media's response to Sandra Fluke testimony

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