This is entertainment? Via ABC:
“So Miss Fluke, and the rest of you Feminazis, here’s the deal. If we are going to pay for your contraceptives, and thus pay for you to have sex. We want something for it. We want you to post the videos online so we can all watch.”
And
“Three thousand dollars for birth control in three years? … They’re admitting before congressional committee that they’re having so much sex they can’t afford the birth control pills!”
The conservative radio host continued: “What does it say about the college co-ed Sandra Fluke, who goes before a congressional committee and essentially says that she must be paid to have sex, what does that make her? It makes her a slut, right? It makes her a prostitute. She wants to be paid to have sex. She’s having so much sex she can’t afford the contraception. She wants you and me and the taxpayers to pay her to have sex. What does that make us? We’re the pimps.”
Limbaugh is a misogynic @ss. He was responding to Georgetown law student Sandra Fluke, who testified before a Democratic hearing last week. She reminded everyone (Rush wasn’t listening) that birth control pills are often prescribed to treat medical conditions such as ovarian cysts. Once-upon-a-time they were prescribed to help with debilitating monthly cramps (personal experience) and excessive bleeding (friends’ experiences).
Traditional birth control pills cost less than $80 a month, but the Ortho Evra birth control patch (contraception) costs about $80-100 per month in Washington, DC zip code 20002. The patch delivery system is much more reliable (you change it once/week) than birth control pills (which you must take daily). Because it’s a transdermal patch, the dose is lower (safer) because stomach acid isn’t involved. Here’s a list of female contraception; and here’s GoodRX, which allows you to look at prices by zip code.
Since we’re talking about contraception, why not revisit this proposal from two years ago, a proposal that just went into effect in Australia (sorta). Make the 50-year-old birth control pill OTC. Over-the-counter. That should bring the price down tout de suite.
But there is something we could do to help the pill live up to its potential: let women purchase it over the counter. A half-century of evidence shows us that it’s safe to dispense the pill without a prescription.
The pill meets F.D.A. criteria for over-the-counter medications… Pill instructions are easy to follow: Take one each day. There’s no chance of becoming addicted. Taking too many will make you nauseated, but won’t endanger your life, in contrast to some over-the-counter drugs, like analgesics. (There are even side benefits to taking the pill, like reduced risks of ovarian and uterine cancer.)
But back to Limbaugh.
Who listens to him, anyway? If his website stats mirror those of his radio listeners, they’re overwhelmingly male, educated, white and mostly over 55; 1.1 million that matched this profile visit the website about three times a month. On the air, in 2011, Limbaugh had a 3.0 share of listeners in his time slot.
So very representative of America, don’t you think?
Here’s a sponsor’s list from 2010. It includes Geico. Time to call, write and tweet.
And here’s a list of his radio stations. Call, write and tweet them, too.
Better yet, sign my White House petition: demand that the FCC finally investigate Limbaugh. He’s gone too far for too long.
“I’m an entertainer first and a conservative second.”
Rush Limbaugh, 1989
In Hot Air by Howard Kurtz
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Known for gnawing at complex questions like a terrier with a bone. Digital evangelist, writer, teacher. Transplanted Southerner; teach newbies to ride motorcycles. @kegill (Twitter and Mastodon.social); wiredpen.com