Sandra Fluke and Doritos

Yet another chapter in the “Republican War on Women” has been opened (see my post from last week). “23-year-old law student from Georgetown University” Sandra Fluke testified before an “unofficial” congressional committee—Republicans barred her from testifying before the official committee because they were discussing the constitutionality of the Obama mandate—about how poor, penniless law students are paying one thousand dollars for birth control a year.

Just one problem: almost everything Fluke told the committee is a bald-faced lie. She’s 30, not 23. She’s a former president of Law Students for Reproductive Justice who graduated from Cornell in 2003 with a degree in Feminist, Gender and Sexuality Studies, and Policy Analysis and Management (try saying that in one breath). According to Jammie Wearing Fools, Fluke herself admitted in an interview that she chose Georgetown with the express intent of taking on the school’s insurance policy, which does not cover contraceptives.

Of course, the whole brouhaha started when Rush called Fluke a “slut” and a “prostitute” on his radio program, which launched a national frenzy of people outraged at this misogynistic display from the idiot blowhard Rush Limbaugh, or any number of plays on his name commentators could come up with. Republicans, too got in on the act. Republican lawmakers denounced his statements along with Democrats, and Rush ended up apologizing (although I doubt it was motivated by any elected official’s words).

Here’s something no one—neither on the right nor the left—is pointing out: students at Georgetown can opt out of the school’s insurance policy. Insurance through Georgetown costs $1895 a year. Fluke testified about her roommate, who needs birth control to treat an ovarian cyst. Well, there are plenty of insurance policies offered on the wider market that both cover birth control and are cheaper than what Georgetown offers.

That’s what everyone does in the real world. If I am on a quest for Doritos, and the store is organic, I shop somewhere else. I could ask the store to stock the Cooler Ranch deliciousness, but I’m not going to go on a crusade to force the store to carry them. Especially if the owner is some new-age hippie who thinks processed food is of the devil and would rather be clubbed to death with a leg of free-range lamb than sell anything but natural organic free-trade preservative-free recyclable chips.

Would it be easier if I could get my cheesy, crunchy flavor explosions in the same place I do the rest of my shopping? Probably. But who am I to force Starfire Daisylove to sully her organic store with my every whim?

For some reason, liberals can’t seem to comprehend that. They have determined birth control is a right, and as everyone knows, if you have the right to something, that means the government—or Catholic charities or insurance companies—should hand it to you for free.

My girlfriend’s father wants to know if the government is so intent on making sure we all have access to our rights, when do they start handing out the free guns? After all, that right is explicitly listed in the Constitution! But then again, so is the right to free exercise, and liberals don’t seem to mind trampling on that one in their pursuit of free contraceptives and abortifacents.

If the Founding Fathers knew we were fighting over who hands out free condoms, they’d be disgusted. They intended rights to be freedom from restriction, rather than a guarantee of free access.