Blogs

Image

Rush Limbaugh is under attack for calling Georgetown University law student and pro-abortion activist Sandra Fluke a “slut” and a “prostitute” after she called on Congress to force her nominally Catholic university to pay for her contraception and abortion-inducing drugs.

Obama and his backers, including the mainstream media, have jumped on the incident in an effort to seize some sort of moral authority and popular support in a debate over Obama’s contraceptive mandate that up until now has been successfully framed in many quarters as an attack on religious freedom.

Limbaugh’s comments were indeed indefensible, as he has acknowledged himself in apologizing. There’s never an excuse for impugning a woman’s inherent dignity in such a fashion, even if she does not fully recognize that dignity or respect it herself.

In fact, opposition to the contraceptive mandate is rooted in a fundamental concern for women’s dignity.

Separating a woman from her procreative ability denies her very womanhood. As has been noted many times, by designating contraception as “preventive care,” the Obama administration has labelled pregnancy a disease and thus demeaned the woman’s defining role in the bearing of new life.

But, however bad Rush’s comments were, the tone he took is by no means uncommon in American politics and was actually relatively tame compared to some of the stuff we see going around.

Where was the uproar from the mainstream media in January when pundit Alan Colmes attacked Rick Santorum over the Senator’s handling of the death of his two-hour old son Gabriel in 1996?

And Fr. John Zuhlsdorf, of the popular Catholic blog What Does the Prayer Really Say?, pointed out that Congresswomen like Nancy Pelosi and Louise Slaughter have taken it even further by accusing politicians of trying to “kill women” when they advance the right to life.

In October, Pelosi said that in supporting the Protect Life Act, a bill seeking to strengthen healthcare worker’s conscience protections and to keep federal funds from paying for abortions under Obamacare, the Republicans “will be voting to say that women can die on the floor and healthcare providers do not have to intervene.”

Commenting, Fr. Zuhlsdorf observes wryly:

We know that there are two sets of rules, one set for liberals and another for conservatives.

I read that Rush Limbaugh apologized for what he called the activist from Georgetown who wants taxpayers to pay for her contraceptives.

I am sure that Nancy Pelosi will now apologize to other members of the House whom she accused of trying to kill women.

I am certain that liberals will now abandon their double-standard in spirit of civility and fairness.

We shouldn’t forget that while Rush Limbaugh is just a talk show host, essentially a guy with a mic, Nancy Pelosi is the Minority Leader of the U.S. House of Representatives – and in fact, in her previous role as Speaker, was the highest-ranking female politician in American history. From whom ought we expect a higher standard?

The massive response against Limbaugh, including the media’s uproar and Obama’s pander to the Planned Parenthood crowd by personally calling up Fluke under the pretence of offering her support, is inconceivable except as a political tool in what is shaping up to be a massive election year culture war.