Sandra Fluke: A Fake Victim of Georgetown’s Policy on Contraceptives?

**Newmexican** · 03-05-2012, 10:40 AM

Sandra Fluke: A Fake Victim of Georgetown’s Policy on Contraceptives?

Posted on March 3, 2012 at 5:00pm by
Mytheos Holt

Since her controversial testimony on February 23, Sandra Fluke has been called many things, from a heroine to a “slut,” but actually, she may just be a fake. Gateway Pundit and Hot Air suggest that may be the case, with citations to a post byJammie Wearing Fools that introduces the following interesting information:

For me the interesting part of the story is the ever-evolving “coed”. I put that in quotes because in the beginning she was described as a Georgetown law student. It was then revealed that prior to attending Georgetown she was an active women’s right advocate. In one of her first interviews she is quoted as talking about how she reviewed Georgetown’s insurance policy prior to committing to attend, and seeing that it didn’t cover contraceptive services, she decided to attend with the express purpose of battling this policy. During this time, she was described as a 23-year-old coed. Magically, at the same time Congress is debating the forced coverage of contraception, she appears and is even brought to Capitol Hill to testify. This morning, in an interview with Matt Lauer on the Today show, it was revealed that she is 30 years old, NOT the 23 that had been reported all along.

Though there aren’t links in the original post to the content mentioned, a little digging shows that it’s all true. Fluke has described herself as a third year law student at Georgetown University, and indeed, that is what she is. However, contrary to the narrative of innocent victimhood that portrays Fluke as a wide-eyed 23-year-old girl caught without contraception on a college campus full of predatory men, Fluke herself is really a 30-year-old women‘s rights activist who not only didn’t get caught without contraception at Georgetown, but specifically knew the university didn’t cover it and chose to attend for precisely that reason.

First, there‘s the matter of Fluke’s age. In a segment on Fluke’s battle with Rush Limbaugh, MSNBC reporter Anne Williams called Fluke “the 23-year-old Georgetown law student, prohibited from testifying.” Yet Fluke’s own Linkedin profile reveals a more mature woman:

In fact, according to that profile, she graduated from college in 2003. Barring Fluke being a child prodigy who somehow graduated college at the age of 15, this would make her at least 30 years old:

It‘s worth noting the massive number of women’s issues groups Fluke was involved in, even while in college. Now, to be fair, Fluke’s age could have been misreported by the media. Most 3rd year law students are at least 25, and they could have confused her for being an undergraduate senior rather than a 3rd year law student.

The idea that Fluke is herself an unwitting victim of Georgetown’s policy on contraceptives is another matter entirely. In several interviews, especially following Rush Limbaugh’s attack, Fluke has implicitly included herself in the group of women who allegedly unwittingly suffer as a result of Georgetown’s policies. This is a key point for the Democrats supporting her, for if Fluke did happen to read Georgetown’s insurance policy before coming and decide to come anyway, that would, at best, undermine her spokeswoman status.

But what if she not only decided to attend the university anyway, but decided to attend specifically so she could fight this battle? Consider this passage from an early Washington Post story done on Fluke before she was permitted to testify:

Fluke came to Georgetown University interested in contraceptive coverage: She researched the Jesuit college’s health plans for students before enrolling, and found that birth control was not included. “I decided I was absolutely not willing to compromise the quality of my education in exchange for my health care,” says Fluke, who has spent the past three years lobbying the administration to change its policy on the issue. The issue got the university president’s office last spring, where Georgetown declined to change its policy.
Fluke says she would have used the hearing to talk about the students at Georgetown that don’t have birth control covered, and what that’s meant for them. “I wanted to be able to share their stories,” she says. “My testimony would have been about women who have been affected by their policy, who have medical needs and have suffered dire consequences.. . .The committee did not get to hear real stories I had to share, about actual women who have been dramatically affected by this policy.”

That’s right. It seems Fluke intentionally chose to go to Georgetown so she could agitate and sway them to cover contraceptives. She then went to a hearing as a representative of women who hadn‘t known about Georgetown’s policy until it was too late. Unsympathetic observers might liken this to James O’Keefe attending a hearing to speak against ACORN on behalf of pimps. It certainly raises the question of why the women Fluke claims to speak for couldn’t present their stories for themselves.

Indeed, in a video made after she was denied the opportunity to testify, Fluke raises two “stories” from women who had emailed her, supposedly about their non-sex-related need of contraceptive medicine. She does not identify the emailers by name, or even by school, saying simply that they are students at an unnamed Catholic University:

If Fluke’s stories are real, many will likely call on her to let the women who sent them speak for themselves and stop hogging the spotlight, given that she did choose to attend Georgetown knowing full well what its policy was on contraceptives, and with every indication of being willing to risk the price tag — whether that price tag would be $3000 over 3 years or not.

The Blaze

**cayla99** · 03-05-2012, 08:08 PM

the bottom line in all of this is simply is there or is there not a separation of church and state? If there is the solid great wall which most liberals swear by when it comes to church interfering with state, then that same solid wall also would prevent the state regulating or interfering in any way with church. Since Georgetown is a University owned and run by a church, the state then has no authority to order it to do anything that is against the church teachings, whether or not, the majority of the congregation adheres to the practice of this religious belief. As long as Kosher and other religiously appropriate meals are mandated to be served in prison, law abiding people of conscience also have the God given, not state given, right to obey their own doctrines. If this line is declared blurred by the state, then in essence they are declaring that the churches indeed can run the state. So, is there a separation or not?

**Newmexican** · 03-26-2012, 09:48 AM

Will Activist Law Student Group That Backed Fluke Condemn Chapter’s ‘Slut Pride’ Celebration?

Posted on March 25, 2012 at 9:59pm

Grandma may be proud that you’re going to Harvard Law…you just might not want to tell her that while paying $47,600 a year for tuition, you are also spending time at the “Sex-Positivity and Slut-Pride” workshops.
Harvard University kicks off Sex Week this Monday, coordinated by the student-run organization Sexual Health Education & Advocacy throughout Harvard College (SHEATH). What is Sex Week at Harvard? An event website explains:

“Sex Week at Harvard intends to promote a week of programming that is interdisciplinary, thought-provoking, scholastic, innovative, and applicable to student experiences in order to promote a holistic understanding of sex and sexuality. Our goal is to connect diverse individuals and communities both within and beyond Harvard through common human experiences with love, sex, sexuality, and relationships. Sex Week 2012 will be held the last week of March, March 25-31.”

One of the event’s sponsors is the Harvard chapter of Law Students for Reproductive Justice(LSRJ). The Harvard LSRJ will sponsor and lead several events during the week, including co-hosting Monday’s “Sex-Positivity and Slut-Pride: Sex Tips for a Modern World from Good Vibrations.” The event description reads:

“Join HLSRJ and Good Vibrations for a short discussion of sex-positivity, a demo of lube and some popular sex toys, then Q&A. Free Food!”

No details on where to wash your hands before the food.

LSRJ is a nationwide organization “that focuses on the promotion of reproduction justice as a central civil and human right.“ The organization promotes curriculum enrichment for ”new course offerings in Reproductive Rights Law and Justice, the provision of supplemental educational tools, and increased scholarship on reproductive justice and the law.”
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The LSRJ National Office also supports law students in “their valiant efforts to gain contraceptive coverage in student health insurance,“ and efforts to ”transform local policies to advance reproductive justice for marginalized populations in their communities; increase access to emergency contraception; write amici curiae briefs in domestic and international court cases; raise money for abortion funds and post-natal maternal healthcare; and recruit volunteers for clinic defense work.”
A notable LSRJ member is Sandra Fluke of the organization’s chapter at Georgetown Law. As Fluke became a national figure following her testimony before a congressional committee regarding contraception costs and her opinion on the mandate controversy, LSRJ released a statement supporting Fluke as outcry grew against radio-host Rush Limbaugh following his comments about the law student.

“Law Students for Reproductive Justice (LSRJ) is proud of our member Sandra Fluke for her courage and commitment in the face of cruelty. Fluke is the Georgetown law student whose contraceptive access advocacy has been called into question with language that falls, as Fluke said in her press statement, ‘far beyond the acceptable bounds of civil discourse.’ Such personal attacks are intended to shame women out of advocacy and into silence, but Fluke refuses to back down, ‘No woman deserves to be disrespected in this manner. This language is an attack on all women, and has been used throughout history to silence our voices.’”

But do events hosted by LSRJ’s Harvard chapter that use language like “Slut-Pride” follow the same standards advocated by the LSRJ national organization and Fluke in rejection to her critics? Cornell Law School Professor William A. Jacobson writes in the blog Legal Insurrection that the event is “more evidence of the education bubble:”

”If only they had offered such activities when I was at Harvard Law School, I might have amounted to something.
Um, did they say “Slut-Pride”?
Boycott Harvard! Or at least its advertisers donors.”

What do you think of the LSRJ national organization should do? Support the event or condemn language that some may perceive as ”an attack on all women.”

The Blaze