Posted on 03/04/2012 1:54:02 PM PST by Netizen
This is the html version of the file http://abcnews.go.com/images/Politics/statement-Congress-letterhead-2nd%20hearing.pdf.
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Leader Pelosi, Members of Congress, good morning, and thank you for calling this hearing on women’s health and allowing me to testify on behalf of the women who will benefit from the Affordable Care Act contraceptive coverage regulation. Myname is Sandra Fluke, and I’m a third year student at Georgetown Law, a Jesuit school. I’m also a past president of Georgetown Law Students for Reproductive Justice or LSRJ. I’d like to acknowledge my fellow LSRJ members and allies and all of the student activists with us and thank them for being here today.
Georgetown LSRJ is here today because we’re so grateful that this regulation implements the nonpartisan, medical advice of the Institute of Medicine. I attend a Jesuit law school that does not provide contraception coverage in its student health plan. Just as we students have faced financial, emotional, and medical burdens as a result, employees at religiously affiliated hospitals and universities across the country have suffered similar burdens. We are all grateful for the new regulation that will meet the critical health care needs of so many women. Simultaneously, the recently announced adjustment addresses any potential conflict with the religious identity of Catholic and Jesuit institutions.
When I look around my campus, I see the faces of the women affected, and I have heard more and more of their stories. . On a daily basis, I hear from yet another woman from Georgetown or other schools or who works for a religiously affiliated employer who has suffered financial, emotional, and medical burdens because of this lack of contraceptive coverage. And so, I am here to share their voices and I thank you for allowing them to be heard.
Without insurance coverage, contraception 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. Forty percent of female students at Georgetown Law report struggling financially as a result of this policy. One told us of how embarrassed and powerless she felt when she was standing at the pharmacy counter, learning for the first time that contraception wasn’t covered, and had to walk away because she couldn’t afford it. Women like her have no choice but to go without contraception. Just last week, a married female student told me she had to stop using contraception because she couldn’t afford it any
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longer. Women employed in low wage jobs without contraceptive coverage face the same choice.
You might respond that contraception is accessible in lots of other ways. Unfortunately, that’s not true. Women’s health clinics provide vital medical services, but as the Guttmacher Institute has documented, clinics are unable to meet the crushing demand for these services. Clinics are closing and women are being forced to go without. How can Congress consider the Fortenberry, Rubio, and Blunt legislation that would allow even more employers and institutions to refuse contraceptive coverage and then respond that the non-profit clinics should step up to take care of the resulting medical crisis, particularly when so many legislators are attempting to defund those very same clinics?
These denials of contraceptive coverage impact real people. In the worst cases, women who need this medication for other medical reasons suffer dire consequences. A friend of mine, for example, has polycystic ovarian syndrome and has to take prescription birth control to stop cysts from growing on her ovaries. Her prescription is technically covered by Georgetown insurance because it’s not intended to prevent pregnancy. Under many religious institutions’ insurance plans, it wouldn’t be, and under Senator Blunt’s amendment, Senator Rubio’s bill, or Representative Fortenberry’s bill, there’s no requirement that an exception be made for such medical needs. When they do exist, these exceptions don’t accomplish their well-intended goals because when you let university administrators or other employers, rather than women and their doctors, dictate whose medical needs are legitimate and whose aren’t, a woman’s health takes a back seat to a bureaucracy focused on policing her body.
In sixty-five percent of cases, our female students were interrogated by insurance representatives and university medical staff about why they needed these prescriptions and whether they were lying about their symptoms. For my friend, and 20% of women in her situation, she never got the insurance company to cover her prescription, despite verification of her illness from her doctor. Her claim was denied repeatedly on the assumption that she really wanted the birth control to prevent pregnancy. She’s gay, so clearly polycystic ovarian syndrome was a much more urgent concern than accidental pregnancy. After months of paying over $100 out of pocket, she just couldn’t afford her medication anymore and had to stop taking it. I learned about all of this when I walked out of a test and got a message from her that in the middle of her final exam period she’d been in the emergency room all night in excruciating pain. She wrote, “It was so painful, I woke up thinking I’d been shot.” Without her taking the birth control, a massive cyst the size of a tennis ball had grown on her ovary. She had to have surgery to remove her entire ovary. On the morning I was originally scheduled to give this testimony, she sat in a doctor’s office. Since last year’s surgery, she’s been experiencing night sweats, weight gain, and other symptoms of early menopause as a result of the
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removal of her ovary. She’s 32 years old. As she put it: “If my body indeed does enter early menopause, no fertility specialist in the world will be able to help me have my own children. I will have no chance at giving my mother her desperately desired grandbabies, simply because the insurance policy that I paid for totally unsubsidized by my school wouldn’t cover my prescription for birth control when I needed it.” Now, in addition to potentially facing the health complications that come with having menopause at an early age-- increased risk of cancer, heart disease, and osteoporosis, she may never be able to conceive a child.
Perhaps you think my friend’s tragic story is rare. It’s not. One woman told us doctors believe she has endometriosis, but it can’t be proven without surgery, so the insurance hasn’t been willing to cover her medication. Recently, another friend of mine told me that she also has polycystic ovarian syndrome. She’s struggling to pay for her medication and is terrified to not have access to it. Due to the barriers erected by Georgetown’s policy, she hasn’t been reimbursed for her medication since last August. I sincerely pray that we don’t have to wait until she loses an ovary or is diagnosed with cancer before her needs and the needs of all of these women are taken seriously.
This is the message that not requiring coverage of contraception sends. A woman’s reproductive healthcare isn’t a necessity, isn’t a priority. One student told us that she knew birth control wasn’t covered, and she assumed that’s how Georgetown’s insurance handled all of women’s sexual healthcare, so when she was raped, she didn’t go to the doctor even to be examined or tested for sexually transmitted infections because she thought insurance wasn’t going to cover something like that, something that was related to a woman’s reproductive health. As one student put it, “this policy communicates to female students that our school doesn’t understand our needs.” These are not feelings that male fellow studentsexperience. And they’re not burdens that male students must shoulder.
In the media lately, conservative Catholic organizations have been asking: what did we expect when we enrolled at a Catholic school? We can only answer that we expected women to be treated equally, to not have our school create untenable burdens that impede our academic success. We expected that our schools would live up to the Jesuit creed of cura personalis, to care for the whole person, by meeting all of our medical needs. We expected that when we told our universities of the problems this policy created for students, they would help us. We expected that when 94% of students opposed the policy, the university would respect our choices regarding insurance students pay for completely unsubsidized by the university. We did not expect that women would be told in the national media that if we wanted comprehensive insurance that met our needs, not just those of men, we should have gone to school elsewhere, even if that meant a less prestigious university. We refuse to pick between a quality education and our health, and we
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resent that, in the 21st century, anyone thinks it’s acceptable to ask us to make this choice simply because we are women. Many of the women whose stories I’ve shared are Catholic women, so ours is not a war against the church. It is a struggle for access to the healthcare we need. The President of the Association of Jesuit Colleges has shared that Jesuit colleges and universities appreciate the modification to the rule announced last week. Religious concerns are addressed and women get the healthcare they need. That is something we can all agree on. Thank you.
This woman is truly despicable. Imagine the outrage if someone managed to get themselves admitted to a Muslim or Jewish institution and then publicly and purposely went forth to ridicule, demean and scorn the principles upon which the school was built. Yet this woman considers herself some sort of persecuted hero. Just why would she choose a “Catholic, Jesuit” school? Of course one could argue that Georgetown has declined into something that should not be confused with being Catholic. (anybody read the brilliant law briefs being prepared by the Georgetown faculty challenging Obama’s Catholic bashing mandate?) If the Jesuits themselves truly were defenders of the faith (as they once were) and had not devolved into an unmentionable lot, they would at least expel this opportunistic rogue.
Yes, I know. Its just another area where she misled people.
Rush was being absurd.
He said that since she was asking for enough money to pay for several protected sexual encounters a day that makes her a slut.
He said that since she was expecting the public to pay so she could have sex, that makes her a prostitute.
He could have just called her a LIAR and said that her bogus numbers were inflated.
But she’d still be a publicity whore.
You get raped and don't report it?? I thought Georgetown only took the smart kids.
I think Michelle Malkin can rip this apart easily - however with this ‘slut-fest’ going on, the opportunity to rip Fluke’s speech apart now will not be heard.
You should try to tune into Rush tomorrow - I am hoping he can turn this around...brilliantly, of course.
Absolutely....All her testimony is “hearsay”....not one bit would be allowed in court without additional testimony.
2.05 times a day for 7 days makes one weak.
2.05 times a day for 365 days makes one raw.
Correction. I know she didn’t appear
My prediction: She’ll be on Ellen’s show next.
But still, when I went to college there is no WAY I, or anyone I knew had as much sex as this slut. And I had a steady girlfriend, and we did it maybe 20 times in 4 years, but that’s us. We weren’t married. And when we did I had the one buck condom, and if she needed the test it cost maybe $50 to $100 bucks. We probably spent no more than $500 bucks. Granted that was 20 years ago, but still, THREE THOUSAND DOLLARS? What this woman is talking about is just plain irresponsibility, being just as Rush said, a SLUT! Liberals always want to take childish risks as adults, and they always demand OTHER people pay for it! I CANNOT believe Rush apologized!
Malkin would be good, but I think you’re right. No one will listen now. I;m going to try to remember to listen to Rush. What time does he come on? Do you think he might take a few days off? I would, even if just to get my ammo ready.
You’re right. If nothing else, he should have waited til he could review what she said carefully.
Condoms are available at Amazon.com for $.20/each. BC pills are available at Target for $4-$9/month. Other forms of birth control are available over the counter at outlets all over the country. Don’t give me this bull that they couldn’t afford it. The horse is at the trough. All it has to do is drink. We do not need insurance for 20 cent condoms.
What this is really about ramming it down peoples throats, just like like they are trying to do with abortion and gay marriage.
I think Limbaugh made a fool of himself on this one. He should have stuck to these points, and maybe made light of how many times you can have sex with $1000 worth of 20 cent condoms, and when would you have time to attend classes at law school. Instead, he made himself the issue, and damaged us as well. Oh well. Now we have free unlimited condoms. Who knows. Maybe if they send them in the mail it will help keep the post office open.
He apologized because he called HER a slut when she wasn’t talking about herself. He had to do it. Like it or not, he at least admitted he said something wrong about her, which is a lot more then Sarah or Bristol Palin ever got from their detractors or Bush from his. Rush did the right thing, I just hope he can survive it.
“He should have stuck to these points, and maybe made light of how many times you can have sex with $1000 worth of 20 cent condoms...”
He did. That was the point of calling her a slut, because $1000 of condoms in a year would indicate a whole lot of sex was going on! And remember, Rush initially was responding to PRESS REPORTS, not a transcript of her testimony.
Everybody needs to go to Seattle and ride the S.L.U.T.-South Lake Union Trolley.
Order the t-shirt while you are at it!
http://ridetheslut.com/
Reminds me of that kook who maligned the American beef industry on Oprah's program.
I heard him on left wing hate radio spewing forth recently.
He said that his prosecution for maligning the beef industry was improper because he really believed that American beef would be infected with mad cow etc. within 10 years.
As George Costanza said, it's not a lie if YOU believe it.
Her claim was denied repeatedly on the assumption that she really wanted the birth control to prevent pregnancy. .......After months of paying over $100 out of pocket, she just couldn’t afford her medication anymore and had to stop taking it.
Names - give us the names!
At least report it to the Better Business Bureau - jeepers.
And then she will made the same rounds on the paid feminist speaking tour that Anita Hill once hit.
“when she wasn’t talking about herself.”
Technically. But initial press reports indicated otherwise, and her testimony was constructed to support the idea that “WE students are being harmed”:
“We can only answer that we expected women to be treated equally, to not have our school create untenable burdens that impede our academic success. We expected that our schools would live up to the Jesuit creed of cura personalis, to care for the whole person, by meeting all of our medical needs. We expected that when we told our universities of the problems this policy created for students, they would help us. We expected that when 94% of students opposed the policy, the university would respect our choices regarding insurance students pay for completely unsubsidized by the university. We did not expect that women would be told in the national media that if we wanted comprehensive insurance that met our needs, not just those of men, we should have gone to school elsewhere, even if that meant a less prestigious university. We refuse 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. “
Lots of WE for someone who was actually trying to say THEY...
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