Having gone on information junket trips and been involved with how those sorts of things work, I can tell you that not just anyone is picked to have a seat before a congressional hearing and have a say on particular issues. Your name typically is submitted by people that either have a lot of drag with Congress or you are well known enough about a subject to be considered.
That’s why it came as a bit of a surprise when a supposed innocent college student by the name of Sandra Fluke sat before Congress and testified about the horrors of having to pay for her own contraception pills. The media types and pundits portrayed her as a struggling young student being victimized by the insurance companies and forced into poverty by the fact that she is a woman living in a man’s world.
Hardly.
The red flag for me was twofold; one, that she was attending a very expensive school (Georgetown) and two, that she was self-described as a ‘public interest’ scholarship recipient. Public interest scholarships are not given as poverty scholarships, they are typically credits given for political purposes.
Fluke is not your normal young college student. For one, she is a 30 year old experienced community activist, older and wiser than your typical college student. Experienced in spades—she sits or has been a part of no less than 6 different advisory boards to women’s rights groups, including the Manhattan Borough President’s Taskforce on Domestic Violence and numerous other New York City and New York State coalitions. She is also a recipient of the 2010 Women Lawyers Association of Los Angeles Fran Kandel Public Interest Grant. The foundation is a non-profit charitable corporation established by the Women Lawyers Association of Los Angeles ("WLALA") to increase the utility of the law as an instrument of social justice. The Grant is given to law students for projects that make governmental and social institutions and agencies more accessible and responsive to members of society whose interests are not otherwise adequately recognized or asserted. In short, this is a woman who knows all the ins and out of the government and government aid systems, and a strong proponent of the concept of 'social justice'.
‘Social justice’ seeks to create economic egalitarianism through taxation, income, or even property redistribution. It is merely just another term for socialism and communism.
Therefore, the story about her friend that couldn’t get affordable birth control, eventually leading to an ovarian cyst just doesn’t ring true. As a career expert in women’s rights and with access to at least a dozen different methods in getting low cost or free contraception, either Ms. Fluke is incompetent in her positions, or is a bald faced liar about the story. Keep in mind, even a rookie women’s activist could and should have directed her to the Planned Parenthood site, which directly offers ways to get birth control pills for about fifteen bucks per month.
So instead of an innocent poor college student discussing the difficulty in getting affordable birth control, we have career women’s rights advocate making the case for the redistribution of wealth in society. Quite a different matter than was originally portrayed.
Furthermore, how is the argument for empowering women in society furthered by arguing that women are merely victims of the free market? Fluke is a member of the Polaris Project, a group that works toward ending human trafficking—a noble cause. But making women slaves of the state instead is no way to go about it; and that’s what she is doing by encouraging women to become reliant on the state and insurance payouts rather than on their own ability to earn a wage and educate themselves in institutions of higher learning. That’s not empowerment, that’s servitude.
Georgetown is not innocent either, and ironically are creators of the very instrument that may be their own demise. An examination of the mentors of their public interest scholarship reveals some very interesting facts. The mentors of the program include but are not limited to:
· Katherine Barton, Attorney, Appellate Section, Environment and Natural Resources Division, U.S. Department of Justice
· Bridgette Kaiser, Staff Attorney, Office of General Counsel, U.S. Department of Health and Human Services
· Sarah Lichtman Spector, Staff Attorney, Family and Children’s Health Programs at U.S. Department of Health and Human Services
· Lynn Overmann, Senior Advisor, Office of the Assistant Attorney General, U.S. Department of Justice
And of course,
· Judith Scott, General Counsel, Service Employees International Union, James and Hoffman.
This is the same SEIU that we all know and love as the purple shirted thugs of the AFL-CIO. It’s interesting that these mentors are also the most likely lawyers to represent the Department of Health and Human Services in the Supreme Court case on Obamacare. It’s no wonder they are so desperate to defend the issue of free contraceptive care because it rests upon the elimination of the First Amendment rights of Georgetown and other religious groups.
If the President backs down on the Georgetown case, or any other Catholic objection to Obamacare mandates, it means that the First Amendment would apply directly to Obamacare—and thus be struck down in its entirety. This explains why Fluke was called to testify, and why Obama is risking political suicide to defend this issue.
It’s all or nothing.
So when you see these sob stories on the news take care and look into them carefully. When they are televised they are often used to manipulate the hearts and minds of those watching at home, who typically do not have the time or experience in understanding the motivations of those making the speeches.
As for Ms. Fluke, you are no struggling college student defending an unaffordable need for yourself or others. You are just another leftist activist with an agenda, and that is something this nation does not need more of, nor should be addressing Congress under the false pretense of poverty or need.
The cold hard light of truth should be the beacon upon which Congress makes its decisions. And that is something, Ms. Fluke, you simply do not represent.
