Sandra Fluke has been announced to speak at the Democratic Convention in Charlotte, so it comes as little surprise that she would send an email blast shilling for campaign donations. Here is the letter, redacted with comments. Any omissions are purposeful but unrelated to my points.
Fluke begins by referencing Rep. Todd Akin’s recent incendiary comments about “legitimate rape.”
Mitt Romney and Paul Ryan tried to distance themselves from the remark — but the fact is they’re in lockstep with Akin on the major women’s health issues of our time. Just this morning, the Republican Party voted to include the “Human Life Amendment” in their platform, calling for a constitutional ban on abortions nationwide, even for rape victims. Several Romney supporters and advisers stood silently by while this vote took place, and the Los Angeles Times reports that the platform “was written at the direction of Romney’s campaign.”
“Tried to distance”? The entire Republican party demanded that Akin step out of the race, lambasting him for his insensitive, ignorant comments, which reflected no one’s views but his own. But Ms. Fluke feels she can still get some residual traction out of this.
President Obama spoke out in response to Akin’s comments: “What I think these comments do underscore is why we shouldn’t have a bunch of politicians, a majority of whom are men, making health care decisions on behalf of women.”
This is truly hilarious, because that is exactly what Obamacare, with its board of unelected bureaucrats will do — only it will make health decisions for everyone.
This controversy is not an accident, or a mistake, or an isolated incident. It’s a reflection of a Republican Party whose policies are dangerous for women.
No; it was a mistake from which Akin’s apology admittedly falls short — an insensitive blunder that Romney and Ryan both denounced, proving it was not a Republican reflection.
It’s absurd to imply that all female decisions come down to where a candidate stands on “abortion, “an issue that registers at less than 1 percent in Gallup’s poll asking about voters’ most important issues.” Women are more than just their sexual organs, thank you. That is a fallacy of the feminist movement today. Women are too smart, too educated, to base a decision on something as important as the future direction of this country and our economy merely on whether the government pays for abortions.
I entered this national debate on women’s rights in February, when, as a Georgetown Law student, I testified before members of Congress on the issue of contraception… Without knowing me or my story, Rush Limbaugh called me a “slut” and a “prostitute” on his radio show.
“Without knowing” her? Is that important to be able to criticize her? No. She took the national stage, and, although his choice of language was unfortunate, it wasn’t wholly inaccurate. If someone (the government) pays for her to have sex, then, there’s a name for that. If she wants to abdicate responsibility for paying for any of her own reproductive health care, what’s the word for that? Freeloader.
Many Americans stepped forward to tell me they agreed with me, and supported my right to speak out without being verbally attacked. President Obama stood with us.
Freedom of speech is not the right to speak unchallenged. Demanding to speak freely but challenging other’s rights to do the same — well, that’s fascism. Does Obama stands with her for fascism or simply hypocrisy? Didn’t Fluke attack Akin at the top of her letter, condemning his words? So Akin may be challenged, but not Fluke? Why? Because she’s a woman? Or because she’s a fascist?
Mitt Romney, on the other hand? He didn’t even condemn the remark, instead saying only: “It’s not the language I would have used.”
Newsflash! That does constitute a condemnation of the remark. Romney is correct to allow Rush freedom of speech, while disputing his choice of words. This is a strong point on which the two candidates differ. Note that Romney also hasn’t condemned Fluke’s testimony or outspokenness ever, while Obama openly condemned the recent former special ops men who made a video denouncing his politicization of the Osama bin Laden kill, derisively calling one a “birther” and another a “tea party candidate.” But guess what, Ms. Fluke? That’s totally okay, although somewhat beneath the office of the president, because we do have freedom of speech, regardless of its merit.
The [Republican] party platform itself includes a “salute” to states that have pushed “informed consent” laws, such as those that force women seeking an abortion to first undergo an invasive and medically unnecessary ultrasound.
Ultrasounds are not, typically, invasive. And abortions, typically, require them anyway. But this argument is disingenuous at best. Republicans stand against the funding of abortions by our tax dollars, just as they would stand against funding Sandra Fluke’s birth control. She can have the pill; they just don’t want the rest of us have to pay for her to have sex. Why is this an argument?
Just last year, Paul Ryan joined Todd Akin and more than 200 other Republicans in co-sponsoring legislation that would have narrowed the definition of rape, limiting which victims of rape were “legitimate” enough to receive financial assistance for access to abortion care.
This is the defining line between conservatives and liberals; liberals want the government to pay for most things while conservatives recognize that plan is unsustainable. Remember the grasshopper and the ant? Environmentalists get this point, just not as it applies to tax dollars and our government. There is a disconnect I cannot seem to explain. Anybody?
Mitt Romney famously says he would “get rid of” Planned Parenthood if he had the chance. And both Romney and Ryan pledge to go back to a system where insurance companies can discriminate against women and charge us more than men for the same health insurance.
Planned Parenthood, an organization originally conceived to limit the number of black children in the inner cites by providing counseling and abortion for black women, is seen as evil by the Republican party, because they currently provide abortions for minors without requiring parental involvement and also for women wanting to abort female children specifically because of their gender. Romney and Ryan don’t believe in taxpayers funding something evil through a near-bankrupted government. They are more fiscally responsible than, say, Ms. Fluke.
Akin’s comments shouldn’t be surprising.
Shame on her. Akin’s comments were certainly most surprising! To all! That’s why all the fuss. She should be thanking her lucky stars for his enormous blunder, which she is shamelessly exploiting.
Republicans, led by Romney and Ryan, have made it clear that they want to make our decisions for us.
No, they haven’t. They are taking a stand to support the value of life. And I’ll just say here that while Akin’s comments should never have crossed his mind, much less his lips, it’s only because he was sucked into the absurd debate on abortion with those witless, repulsive, ridiculous questions, “What about rape? What about incest?”
The problem with abortion for pro-lifers is this: it’s taking a life — an innocent one. If someone recognizes the scientific fact that life begins at conception, then abortion is murder, regardless of any extenuating circumstances.
President Obama trusts us to make our own. It’s as simple as that.
Please don’t patronize the female electorate, Ms. Fluke. We all know it most certainly isn’t “simple,” because neither are we.
COMMENTS
Please let us know if you're having issues with commenting.