US President Barack Obama called a law student on Friday to express his support after she was branded a “slut” by right-wing talk-show host Rush Limbaugh for her outspoken support of Obama’s new policy on contraception coverage.
Sandra Fluke, a 30-year old student and women’s rights activist at Georgetown University in Washington, has been caught in the middle of a contentious election-year fight between Obama and Republicans over the policy, which requires health insurance plans to cover contraception.
The Roman Catholic Church, religious-affiliated organizations, t and social conservatives have protested Obama’s new policy, saying it was as an infringement on religious liberty. An effort by Republicans in the senate to overturn it failed this week.
US House of Representatives Speaker John Boehner, the top Republican in congress, distanced his party from Limbaugh’s comments.
A spokesman for Boehner called them “inappropriate” in a statement that also criticized Democrats for using the issue to raise funds before the Nov. 6 election.
Fluke has spoken out against the Republican effort to scrap the birth control policy and advocated making contraception available to all women, drawing fire from Limbaugh and some other conservative commentators.
In an interview, Fluke said she was initially hurt, then outraged by Limbaugh’s remarks, but said she hoped the incident had raised awareness about the new policy.
She said she had received “an avalanche” of supportive e-mails from women and men around the US, including many from women who said they needed contraception to respond to medical conditions such as seizures, not just to prevent pregnancy.
The president called “to offer his support and thank me for helping to make heard the voices of all the women who will benefit from this regulation,” Fluke said. “He just wanted to clearly express his distaste for the types of comments that have been made about me. He was very kind.”
White House spokesman Jay Carney said Obama thinks Limbaugh’s comments were reprehensible.
“It is disappointing that those kinds of personal and crude attacks could be leveled against someone like this young law school student, who was simply expressing her opinion on a matter of public policy,” Carney said.
Limbaugh, one of the most listened-to radio talk-show hosts in the country, first blasted Fluke on Wednesday.
“What does it say about the college co-ed 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? Makes her a prostitute. She wants to be paid to have sex,” he said.
“If we are going to pay for your contraceptives, thus pay for you to have sex, we want something for it, and I’ll tell you what it is: We want you to post the videos online so we can all watch,” he added, repeating the slurs again on Thursday.
Fluke said Limbaugh’s comments were meant to silence women who spoke out about their healthcare needs, but the attack had failed.
“It’s clear from the voices that we’ve heard from all over the country that women and the men who support them are not going to be silenced on this issue,” said Fluke, who plans to take the bar exam in California and continue her advocacy work for women after graduating from law school in May.
CONFRONTATION: The water cannon attack was the second this month on the Philippine supply boat ‘Unaizah May 4,’ after an incident on March 5 The China Coast Guard yesterday morning blocked a Philippine supply vessel and damaged it with water cannons near a reef off the Southeast Asian country, the Philippines said. The Philippine military released video of what it said was a nearly hour-long attack off the Second Thomas Shoal (Renai Shoal, 仁愛暗沙) in the contested South China Sea, where Chinese ships have unleashed water cannons and collided with Philippine vessels in similar standoffs in the past few months. The China Coast Guard and other vessels “once again harassed, blocked, deployed water cannons, and executed dangerous maneuvers” against a routine rotation and resupply mission to
GLOBAL COMBAT AIR PROGRAM: The potential purchasers would be limited to the 15 nations with which Tokyo has signed defense partnership and equipment transfer deals Japan’s Cabinet yesterday approved a plan to sell future next-generation fighter jets that it is developing with the UK and Italy to other nations, in the latest move away from the country’s post-World War II pacifist principles. The contentious decision to allow international arms sales is expected to help secure Japan’s role in the joint fighter jet project, and is part of a move to build up the Japanese arms industry and bolster its role in global security. The Cabinet also endorsed a revision to Japan’s arms equipment and technology transfer guidelines to allow coproduced lethal weapons to be sold to nations
‘POLITICAL EARTHQUAKE’: Leo Varadkar said he was ‘no longer the best person’ to lead the nation and was stepping down for political, as well as personal, reasons Leo Varadkar on Wednesday announced that he was stepping down as Ireland’s prime minister and leader of the Fine Gael party in the governing coalition, citing “personal and political” reasons. Pundits called the surprise move, just 10 weeks before Ireland holds European Parliament and local elections, a “political earthquake.” A general election has to be held within a year. Irish Deputy Prime Minister Micheal Martin, leader of Fianna Fail, the main coalition partner, said Varadkar’s announcement was “unexpected,” but added that he expected the government to run its full term. An emotional Varadkar, who is in his second stint as prime minister and at
Thousands of devotees, some in a state of trance, gathered at a Buddhist temple on the outskirts of Bangkok renowned for sacred tattoos known as Sak Yant, paying their respects to a revered monk who mastered the practice and seeking purification. The gathering at Wat Bang Phra Buddhist temple is part of a Thai Wai Khru ritual in which devotees pay homage to Luang Phor Pern, the temple’s formal abbot, who died in 2002. He had a reputation for refining and popularizing the temple’s Sak Yant tattoo style. The idea that tattoos confer magical powers has existed in many parts of Asia