Sandra Fluke, failed courtesan
Technically this month’s honoree reached her zenith late last month, and while she’s faded into obscurity 4 weeks later there’s no reason why we can’t give her the distinction she so deserves.
Meet Georgetown law student Sandra Fluke, she of the sensible haircut and uptight demeanor that betrays her as the kind of person Charles Dickens had in mind when he remarked that “Youth is wasted on the young.” Actually, not that much youth. She’s 30, which is becoming a perfectly acceptable age for a college student in the 2010’s. A college student who can’t support herself and doesn’t even display a desire to. If you find that incongruous with the idea of Controlling Your Cash, read on.
By the way, we labeled her a failed courtesan because she expects compensation for sex, and she isn’t getting any. (Compensation.) In her defense, she doesn’t exactly look like a firecracker between the sheets. (Also, we originally used “prostitute”, but so did Rush Limbaugh and no one cares that we wrote the relevant parts of this post before his on-air attack.)
Ms. Fluke testified before a Congressional panel, complaining that the Jesuit school she attends doesn’t cover contraception in its student health plans. The assumptions she makes are undeniable:
- A private institution is obligated to pay for certain preventative health measures that have nothing to do with the act of studying law at said institution. She might as well be complaining that she can’t get a Pepsi on campus because the university has an exclusive contract with Coke.
- An institution that subscribes to Catholic tenets, including the one about contraception being immoral – however antiquated that belief might seem to Ms. Fluke or anyone else – is obligated to reject those tenets to accommodate a student who chose to attend there and presumably knew the rules going in.
- This is all the federal government’s business, and by extension, ours. After guarding the coasts, collecting taxes, and keeping the International Space Station in orbit, one of the other critical items on the list is seeing to it that not only can Sandra Fluke have sex with abandon, but that someone other than her (or her partner) needs to provide the condoms and spermicidal lubricant.
So, Ms. Fluke, why’d you choose to attend a school whose health plans aren’t to your liking?
[I r]efused to pick between a quality education and our health, and we resent that in the 21st century anyone thinks it’s acceptable to ask us to make this choice simply because we are women.
No, you’re being asked to make the choice simply because no one – not your employer, not your church, not your educational institution – promised to or is obligated to offer you a suite of services that match up exactly with what you want.
That’s a nation with a $15 trillion debt in a nutshell. The very definition of economics is the study of infinite wants chasing finite resources. You have to allocate. We all do. To quote Paula Pant, it’s “Afford anything”, not “Afford everything.” What is the practical difference between Ms. Fluke demanding “contraception”, which she never bothers to define past the conceptual level, and demanding a BMW to drive to classes in?
At least Georgetown is teaching her to speak in obfuscated lawyery jargon. Again, she demands “contraception”. What, an IUD? A transdermal patch? A tubal ligation? Instruction in the rhythm method?
For decades now, it’s been an article of faith among health departments at the national, state and local levels that condoms are safe and effective for preventing someone’s wayward semen from mixing with someone else’s questionable vaginal secretions. Also, condoms are obscenely cheap. In fact, it’s hard to find a college campus where some organization hasn’t taken it upon itself to give them away to whoever wants one.
We haven’t brought them on board as a sponsor yet, in between the payday loan places and the medical marijuana suppliers, but Condom Depot was easy enough to find. They sell standard Durex non-lubricated prophylactics for, at the absolute most, 60¢ apiece. But given the frequency with which Miss Fluke needs contraception, Condom Depot can get her in for half that. 3000 condoms for $900.
Without insurance coverage, contraception, as you know, can cost a woman over $3,000 during law school. For a lot of students who, like me, are on public interest scholarships, that’s practically an entire summer’s salary.
A. If you’re making the equivalent of $12,000 a year, you should probably find another line of work. Especially in your 30s.
B. Sex is…what’s the word? Voluntary. There’s no way you can’t get to the following conclusion from her premises:
I want to engage in behavior that has nothing to do with my position as a student. If I choose to have sex, the institution I attend must accommodate the kind of sex I want.
If Georgetown is obligated to provide her with $3000 worth of contraception, however she defines it, why not nipple clamps and anal beads, too? Like many a previous sensibly coiffed woman to have come before Congress with an agenda, Ms. Fluke sees a crisis where none exists. And like many an American in 2012, to say nothing of many a Financial Retard of the Month, her overwhelming directive is to expect something for nothing. Again, a voluntary exchange of money for services. If you don’t like the services, keep your money. And judging from how little Ms. Fluke makes, she should be keeping her money anyway.
Ms. Fluke can make an unsubstantiated, outrageous, unverifiable claim about how badly she, an innocent woman, is being screwed by a heartless and faceless entity that puts profits over people. That the people in charge of that entity are so paternalistic that they even go by the title “Father” makes Miss Fluke all the more sympathetic in the eyes of an uninformed public. She also used the word “needs” as a noun 9 times in her testimony, an unmistakable giveaway that she’s an idiot.
Health insurance is supposed to be a way to minimize risk. Go without a few dollars now, and you won’t go without a lot of dollars later should you lose an arm or need cancer surgery.
Protected sex isn’t a crisis with a low risk of occurring. It’s a commonplace (depending on your partner and your availability) activity. So is sneezing, and there’s no logical difference between Miss Fluke demanding that her college’s health plan cover “contraception” and demanding that it cover something to blow her nose into.
This affects all of us in the sense that a blanket policy costs more money than a true insurance policy that would only cover catastrophes. If you want a policy that’ll cover heart transplants, but allow you to pay for your own blood tests – well, try and find such a policy. When every line item of a policy is mandated by the government, prices rise. So does coverage, whether the insured wants it to or not. Some of us don’t need condoms. Others would gladly pay for them ourselves.
But yes, keep voting for politicians who see nothing wrong with tying up Congress’s time and taxpayer money on such trivialities.
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