RUSH: We had the sound bite yesterday on this program. Kathleen Sebelius was testifying on Capitol Hill. She actually said, quote: “The reduction in the number of pregnancies compensates for the cost of contraception.” She was suggesting that fewer babies born would make the cost of contraception not be as much, and it would reduce health care costs overall as well. Now, what’s happening here politically with the elevation of contraception here to such prominence in the national debate? To me, it is evidence that the Democrats and the left have encountered utter political and moral failure on their decades-long abortion push.
It just isn’t the winning issue for them it used to be.
It is not the issue. If it were, this wouldn’t be about contraception. This would be about abortion. Follow me on this. This is key politically. The Democrats need these planks to scare voters about the Republican Party. If abortion were still the winning issue that the Democrats think that it used to be, Sandra Fluke would be testifying about that. Sandra Fluke would be upset that abortion is not being paid for at Georgetown, a Catholic Jesuit university. But she’s not, is she? She’s testifying about contraception. “Contraception” is the replacement plank for “abortion” in the Democrat Party platform. That’s what’s happening here, in a political sense.
Now, it isn’t going to work. Not only because of the failure of logic and broad persuasive power, but because the whole ginned-up thing is so phony! Free and cheap contraception is available everywhere. Nobody’s been denied contraception. It’s free. As mentioned yesterday: In Washington, DC, just call the Board of Health, call the Department of Health, and they’ll send you as many condoms as you want. But the thing is, voters know this. Voters know that contraception is not being denied to anyone. Voters know that contraception is cheap! It is available anywhere, any time, in abundance.
There is no army of whipped-up, angry female voters ready to mobilize on this issue no matter what the Democrats and the media are pretending here. Sandra Fluke is “an army of one.” They may be able to get five or six stragglers but this is not representative in a political sense now of any mass movement. And if they create one, that will be exactly what they’ve done: Create it. Because it doesn’t exist. For this to be genuine, contraception would be difficult to find. Birth control pills would be priced out of site, it would be difficult to get them, and therefore the demand would be genuine. But it’s not! Contraception’s everywhere. It’s cheap.
It’s five bucks at Walmart we heard yesterday! So what I’m doing and what I’m saying and how I’m reacting is “reprehensible.” But it’s not reprehensible for Obama to violate the Constitution. It’s not reprehensible for Obama to impose his own morality on the Catholic Church and all of its schools and all of its hospitals. No, that’s not reprehensible? To me it is. To me it’s insulting and reprehensible. It’s also very frightening. The president of the United States is behaving outside the bounds of the Constitution. This is something Henry VIII would do. They find me reprehensible. I can’t do anything. I can’t deny you anything. I can’t provide you anything. I can’t mandate that you get anything. I can’t do one thing to you.
Obama can — wants to, in fact!
Now, what’s the central element here that’s in all of the Drive-By stories is missing? It’s very simple. What’s missing in this… Let me explain it in a different way. Let me illustrate it as a lot of people see it. In fact, if you’re new to the program today, this is probably what you think. We have this struggling co-ed at Georgetown, and when she got there she found out that they’ve got this very discriminatory restrictive policy on contraception. She can’t get any. And the Republican Party hates women and doesn’t want this student, this co-ed, to have her birth control pills. So she has courageously and bravely sacrificed her anonymity and her privacy to step forward and lead a cause against a highly discriminating, repressive Georgetown University denying her a birth control pill here or there.
The truth is… And if this were reported as part of the story, all the rest of this would make sense. If everything she has said were part of the story, it would all make sense. It was Sandra Fluke who said that she was having so much sex, she can’t afford it. See, it’s a different thing for people to hear. People may be sympathetic. Here’s a 30-year-old woman. She might not have a lot of money despite how much Georgetown costs. (But I’m talking about perception.) She wants to have sex now and then but just can’t. She’s a very responsible woman but she can’t because people are denying her contraception. The truth is, she’s spending a thousand dollars a year on pills, and she’s going broke and wants us to buy it.
Now, if that were part of this story… That’s central to this! That is the foundation of this story. That’s why she’s there. By her own admission, in her own words, Sandra Fluke is having so much sex that she can’t afford it. She’s going broke, I believe she said. And then she said she’d run the numbers and that the circumstances are the same for 40% of the co-eds at Georgetown, that they will spend $3,000 on contraception — and that’s somehow just not fair. She claimed that 40% of the female students at Georgetown Law reported that they “struggle financially” as a result of the policy at Georgetown. They “struggle financially.” Why are they struggling financially? They are struggling financially because they’re having a lot of sex for which they need a lot of contraception.
Now, they’re laughing on the other side of the glass. I happen to think this is fundamental to the story. Is it not… (interruption) Dawn, are you worried here I’m just stepping in it deeper? Yes, you are. But this is the truth. (interruption) Oh. Does she have more boyfriends? Ha! They’re lined up around the block. They would have been in my day. Anyway, without that being part of the story, it’s quite understandable that people who hear this on the periphery, might say, “What the heck? I don’t understand.” But by her own admission… Maybe they’re not having a lot of sex and want to; I don’t know. But she’s saying that they are struggling financially as a result of the policy at Georgetown.
Struggling financially.
That’s $1,000 a year for contraception that she can’t afford and wants us to pay for it. You put that, Brian Williams, in your report tonight. All the rest of you on cable news, you put that in there. Use her own words! I’m not making any of it up. You put all the details that she brought forth. She’s struggling financially. Why? Just quote her. Her sex life is active and she’s having sex so frequently that she can’t afford all the birth control pills that she needs. Is what she’s saying. You put that in the story and it changes for everybody. But politically, what this really means is that abortion doesn’t carry the weight politically that it used to, and this whole contraception thing is a replacement plank for what’s failing on the abortion side.
BREAK TRANSCRIPT
RUSH: Babs in Illinois, great to have you on Open Line Friday. Hi.
CALLER: Hi, Rush. I’d just like to say: “Thank goodness this woman is taking birth control so there won’t be any more of her around.” Now, can we put this subject to bed, ’cause I’m tired of it.
RUSH: (chuckling) Go ahead.
CALLER: Thank you.
RUSH: What do you want to talk about?
CALLER: (silence)
RUSH: Oh, that’s all she wanted? So she said, “Thank goodness this woman is taking birth control so there won’t be any more of her around.” Well, isn’t that the point? She isn’t. She’s run out! (interruption) She said she’s out. That’s why she’s up at Congress asking for money for more. (interruption) Well, I don’t know. I’m just assuming that she’s unable to have protected sex. That’s why this is an issue. (interruption) Well, I hadn’t looked at it that way. “Put the subject to bed,” that’s quite funny. (laughing) Babs, there’s only one thing: It’s Open Line Friday and the callers get to talk about what they want to talk about.