SHE PREFERRED FREE PILLS over free will. Back in late February 2012 a woman claiming to be a law student, named Sandra Fluke, offered testimony before the House Democratic Steering and Policy Committee. I say she’s “claiming” to be a law student because she’s so much more. In reality, she’s a professional activist, a thirty-year-old woman who has spent her adult life demanding things that the rest of us should pay for. In this case, she was demanding that religious institutions like Georgetown University pay for her (and everyone else’s) birth control pills. This was her crusade, and the Democrats welcomed her with open flabby arms. After all, the testimony was happening just as the Obama administration basically was telling the Catholic Church to screw themselves (without protection) with regard to Obamacare. Yep, O’s mandated health care had something in there saying contraception, sterilization, and the morning-after pill must be offered free of charge by Catholic-affiliated organizations like colleges, universities, and hospitals. It became an ugly brawl—about religious freedom and tolerance. Can the government force a religious institution to act in a way that their very religion finds objectionable? And so the time was right for Fluke to become a star. And in the age of the tolerati and their obsession with entitlement, she deserved to be. She was the modern mascot of the protracted moan, the Norma Rae of “you will pay.”
Fluke had made the claim that during a three-year stint as a law student, you’d be expected to pay up to 3 grand for your pills—comparing that egregious sum to all the wages you’d make from a summer job (which would lead me to suggest to Sandra: Get a better summer job, or maybe just any job).
Forget her math for a second, because it’s silly. Pills cost dollars a month, and if you can’t afford them, then clearly you are too lazy and stupid to have sex—which is very lazy and stupid indeed. And if you expect us to pay for that, what next? Dinner? The movie? Your eHarmony account? A lot of work goes into having sex, and all of those play an important role in getting it done. I’ve argued before that even gasoline should be free, for without it, how would you get to the pharmacy to pick up your pills? If a feminist does not demand free fill-ups for her Prius, well, she’s just part of the problem.
But look, the real problem was the sense of priority and proportion this issue had assumed. Fluke called having to pay for birth control an “untenable burden.” Apparently, she’d never met a girl trying to go to school in Afghanistan without being doused with acid. That’s a real burden, and even those who suffer from them might not call them untenable. As the son of a father who died of cancer, I can vouch for this: the last two years were untenable. Needing a wheelchair just to get your mail is untenable. Taking a cocktail of drugs to fend off infections? Untenable. But every Jane with an iPhone and an addiction to Starbucks lattes not being able to have her recreational sex life with beta males fresh from Occupy Wall Street subsidized by you and me, that was even more unacceptable. The fact is, in the age of repressive tolerance, we have to accept everything the left demands, or we will be seen as sexist, bigoted, evil. If you wanted Catholic services to make up their own minds, clearly you were waging “a war against women.”
And that’s how the left bamboozled everyone, with the help of the compliant media, who bought her spiel—hook, line, and stinker. On your dime.
Fluke was savvy enough to make this not about sex (when that’s the only thing it’s about) and turned it into a “women’s health issue.” She put forward one case about a woman (her friend) with an ovarian cyst caused by not being able to get free birth control—yep, one case. And you know if you asked for another, she’d probably have to get back to you. But asking for more examples would only paint you as intolerant, and without a doubt, misogynistic. And pro-cyst.
As a health editor in my younger days, I know you can portray anything as a health issue. Because that’s exactly what I did, to fill up the pages of Prevention and Men’s Health every month. If birth control pills are a health concern that must be subsidized, then surely condoms are as well. I should never have to pay for another rubber until I die. Although, like most men, I’d probably only buy one, which would slowly disintegrate in my wallet, becoming prophylactic potpourri.
But a bigger concern, if we’re talking about making demands, is sex itself. If we must pay for Fluke’s pills because they are an “untenable burden,” she in turn should pay for my sex life (which is untenable in more ways than I can relate). Research shows that loneliness is a heavy stressor on men. Men who go to bars and come home alone are often depressed and prone to self-destructive behavior. We do know that women live, on average, 10 percent longer than men. And I’ve said before that sexual rejection syndrome can be at the root of this discrepancy. When men don’t get laid, they find other things to do that aren’t nearly as fun, or as healthy. Drinking, for example, which leads to increased risk of all sorts of ailments (especially if you get too drunk and fall down a flight of stairs). Men also fight when they’re alone, and black eyes and fractured noses are definitely considered a health problem at the emergency room. The doctor will even write “untenable” right across your chart. So by this logic, someone should be buying me hookers to ease my burden, perhaps you (and I prefer brunettes). And what about the consequences of sex with hookers, which is another alternative for a lonely man without a pliant partner? STD treatment can be expensive, too. Do you think that Democratic Steering Committee might hear me out on this?
Forget that health insurance should really only pertain to serious stuff. This sad and stupid debate should be pretty simple: it’s between those who embrace the entitlement culture and those who cherish individual responsibility. In my opinion, Fluke is a moral and intellectual lightweight. For anyone to demand free stuff simply to support a lifestyle, and claim it a health issue, should make every sensible human being sick to their stomach. She is an emblem of a crumbling country, the strident entitlist (another word I coined; every time you use it, I get a royalty) who demands you tolerate her needs—while, of course, she ignores yours. We are now a nation of nags, each one crying out for something they feel is deserved rather than earned.
But the Fluke story took another turn—as it should, because it was starting to get boring—when radio talk show host Rush Limbaugh committed what sportsmen might call an “unforced error,” veering into what the left calls “highly demeaning” territory, referring to Fluke as a “slut” and a “prostitute.” The media and their lefty activists who supply them with fodder went ape-crazy, demanding apologies and firings and amputations. Sure, what Rush said was unnecessary, but it was only a parodic extension. A woman is demanding you pay for her sexual activities. Every single day must be covered. A left-wing comedian could come up with a half dozen monikers for that, and none of them very pretty. And he or she would get away with it. It’s a joke, an exaggeration—one that didn’t work in this case, though, because Fluke is a heroic character for the left, and the slur came from the mouth of Rush, the font of all things evil. Meanwhile, in various parts of the world, there are “slut” marches, led by feminists who want to proudly wear that moniker to strike a blow against an evil, intolerant patriarchy who would see sexually active women as immoral. For them, it’s “empowering” to get laid a lot with casual aquaintances, which falls perfectly in line with millions of dudes who think it’s pretty cool, too. No protest marches against that, I predict.
And so what could have been a frank discussion about government overreach and entitlement shifted into a “war on women.” If you deny a birth control pill to anyone, period, you are waging war on the fairer sex. Ironically, the “I am woman, hear me roar” crowd became the “I am needy, give me more” bunch—the damsels in distress who, in 2012, cannot find a way to pay for cheap pills. I mean, aren’t women independent enough not to need Daddy to take care of them?
And by Daddy, I mean President Obama, who actually called Fluke to offer his support. Yep, forget those protesters dying in Syria or the explosive number of homicides in Chicago. The person who needed his help most was a thirty-year-old woman whose mission is to get free stuff everyone can afford. The only missing part of this is that Obama did not personalize it and proudly proclaim, “When my daughters get old enough, I want them to get free contraception.” Of course, he wouldn’t, because he’s a decent dad, and talking about your kids’ future sex life would be legitimately weird. But that’s where his logic leads, right? What’s good for Fluke is good for all women.
But more important, Fluke did not need his help. In the age of the tolerati, the victim of a slur like “slut” never emerges as the victim but as the victor. Can you imagine Newsweek running an unhinged cover photo of Fluke, the way they did to Michele Bachmann? Not on your life. Rush calling Fluke those names (albeit jokingly and crudely), and President Obama calling her for comfort, are the greatest things to ever happen to Fluke. And likely will be, until her Guggenheim grant comes through.
If she doesn’t get a job on MSNBC or Current TV by the time this here book is published, I will eat my hat. (Provided it’s a small hat and made from a variety of marzipan. I love marzipan.) As I edit this book, she’s about to take the podium at the 2012 DNC.
Having said that, I’m sure Fluke is a nice lady. I just have a quarrel with the entitlement mindset. And remember, she’s only thirty. Maybe when she grows up, she’ll get it.