Rush Limbaugh highlighted a series of ads produced by private Colorado nonprofits that promote the contraception provisions of the Affordable Care Act to revive attacks on Sandra Fluke, the law student and reproductive choice advocate that he labeled a “slut.”
Nonprofit organizations ProgressNow Colorado and the Colorado Consumer Health Initiative released a series of ads encouraging Colorado residents to apply for insurance through the state's health insurance exchanges. The ads included messages that highlighted increased access to contraception through insurance coverage. The Denver Post reported that the ads were targeted at young people and have ignited controversy:
In one of the most discussed “Got insurance?” ads, produced by the liberal ProgressNow Colorado and the Colorado Consumer Health Initiative, a young woman holds a packet of birth-control pills and stands next to a young man, his hand wrapped around her waist.
So what's she thinking?
“OMG, he's hot! Let's hope he's as easy to get as this birth control. My health insurance covers the pill, which means all I have to worry about is getting him between the covers,” read the words in the risqué advertisement.
While the groups say the aim is to encourage young people to enroll in the state's new health insurance exchange -- a pillar to President Barack Obama's Affordable Care Act -- some have said it belittles women. It also adds to the partisan back-and-forth over the new health care law.
Limbaugh used the ads to recall Sandra Fluke, a Georgetown University law student who testified before congress about reproductive access, leading Limbaugh to label her a “slut” and “prostitute.” On the November 13 edition of his radio show, Limbaugh claimed he was vindicated by the ads and revived his attack on Fluke:
LIMBAUGH: All right, now, here's the ad. I'm gonna turn the Dittocam on. You've heard me read the text. Here is the ad. That ad is promoting promiscuity. That ad is associating promiscuity with Obamacare. Obamacare will get you your birth control pill so you can get him and you can get her. And you can get each other between the covers. You don't have to worry about anything because Obamacare's got you covered because you got insurance.
Let me show you this one more time. I have to pull this down because I've got the Dittocam really focused in. I think back, ladies and gentlemen, when I predicted, I warned everybody that's where this was headed. I forget that woman's name now, Snerdley, the one that was in that fake congressional hearing press conference. But she was sitting there, and she was basically saying, “Look, I want to have limitless, endless sex, I want you to pay for it. It's costing me $3,000 a month for my birth control, but I can't afford that with my tuition and everything else and I want you all to pay for it.” And I was like any normal, responsible person, I was insulted by this, that we were being told we have to pay for this, which is behavior we don't sanction. We don't think there's anything good that can come of it.