United Liberty
Sandra Fluke is back
Wed, 08/08/2012 - 8:05am | posted by Jason Pye
Back at the end of February and early March, Sandra Fluke came to fame thanks to very stupid comments by conservative talk show host Rush Limbaugh. Fluke appeared before a panel of Democrats who sit on the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee. During her testimony, Fluke explained that college women cannot afford the cost of contraceptives, which she said can cost upward of $3,000 over the course of a few years and that it justifies mandates in private health insurance plans.
After Limbaugh’s comments, in which he called her a “slut” and a “prostitute,” President Barack Obama’s campaign and Democrats in Congress began playing up the so-called “war on women,” one of the more annoying, untruthful memes we’ve heard this year.
The underlying problem with Fluke’s comments is that, in her mind, someone should be forced to subsidize the behavior of others. While basking in the sun of her notoriety, Jacob Sullum explained easier options for those that couldn’t afford expensive birth control products, such as buying condoms, which are relative inexpensive, or abstinence. Sullum also noted the holes in Fluke argument, explaining, “By the same logic, religious freedom requires kosher food subsidies, freedom of speech requires taxpayer-funded computers, and the right to keep and bear arms requires government-supplied guns.”
It came as no surprise to many when Fluke endorsed President Obama for re-election back in June and praised some of the legislation he has signed into law, including ObamaCare. It probably comes as even less of a surprise to learn that Fluke will introduce President Obama this morning at a campaign stop in Denver:
In case you needed further proof of the importance of the women’s vote in Colorado this election – and that the Obama campaign is following the 2010 roadmap of U.S. Sen. Michael Bennet – word comes that Sandra Fluke will introduce President Obama at his Denver campaign stop.
[…]
Obama is scheduled to speak at the Auraria Campus in downtown Denver Wednesday morning. While his talk – and other stops in Grand Junction, Pueblo and Colorado Springs – will be focused on his plans for the economy, the Fluke appearance brings to the forefront another area in which the Obama campaign is trying to differentiate its candidate from Mitt Romney.The campaign recently launched a new television ad that hits Romney on women’s issues, namely his statements that he would eliminate Planned Parenthood, calling Romney “out of touch” on women’s issues.
The attention that Fluke got, which is entirely on Limbaugh and his inability to keep his mouth shut when he has something dumb cross his mind (and the comments were wrong not just because they created a stir), really should have been an in-kind contribution to Obama in the first place. But again, it’s not surprising that Sandra Fluke is just another Democratic hack.
Yet another post on a liberty-minded site by a myopic social conservative? Really?
For the mathematically challenged Mr. Pye, among others, contraceptives are quite cheap and a wonderful way to reduce government spending. Guess what’s really expensive? Unwanted children. Which do you think costs taxpayers more, free contraceptives or free education, welfare, incarceration, and the various other things that happen to unplanned children?
Um, I’m not a so-con. In fact, I’m ambivalent on the abortion issue. I do, however, have a problem with spending taxpayers dollars on what should be a matter of personal responsibility. But thanks for playing.
You understand that holding the poor to standards of “personal responsibility” on this issue simply means more unwanted children, right? Do you think people who can’t afford contraceptives can afford to raise a child without massive amounts of taxpayer dollars?
Want to reduce unemployment, poverty, incarceration rates, improve schools, reduce school spending, reduce welfare spending, and deal with a whole host of other issues? Free contraceptives do all of that, and more. It’s a cheap program and would easily pay for itself by many multiples in reduced spending.
Sigh. Taxpayers should pay for the habits of others. If you reject that notion, then there is no point in having this discussion.
I’m not arguing abstractions in an ivory tower vacuum.
People are going to have sex. And when they have sex without contraceptives, children are the result. Unwanted children cost taxpayers much, much more than the pittance that birth control costs.
This is a perfect example of why I much prefer Gary Johnson and his cost benefit analysis style of decision making to the arcane musings of Ron Paul. CBA can actually be used to analyze and deal with real world problems, such as this one, whereas the pure libertarian approach fails abysmally. In your world, who cares if taxpayers have to pay $33,000 a year for 20 years to incarcerate someone? Taxpayers saved the $0.59 a contraceptive would have cost! What a bargain!
Post new comment