'She wants you and me and the taxpayers to pay her to have sex,' Limbaugh said. Rush blasted for 'slut' comment

Rush Limbaugh is under fire for calling a Georgetown University law student who testified on Capitol Hill about contraception a “prostitute” and a “slut.”

“What does it say about the college co-ed Sandra Fluke, who goes before a congressional committee and essentially says that she must be paid to have sex? What does that make her?” Limbaugh said on his radio show on Wednesday. “It makes her a slut, right? It makes her a prostitute. She wants to be paid to have sex. She’s having so much sex she can’t afford the contraception. She wants you and me and the taxpayers to pay her to have sex. What does that make us? We’re the pimps.”


The conservative radio host continued on to joke, “OK, so she’s not a slut. She’s ‘round heeled.’”

Fluke, a third-year student at Georgetown University Law Center, was a witness last week at an unofficial hearing of the Democratic Steering and Policy Committee, convened by House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.), as a response to an earlier all-male panel hearing held by the Oversight and Government Reform Committee. The committee’s chairman, Rep. Darrell Issa (R-Calif.), had not allowed Fluke to testify at the original hearing, saying she was not qualified to do so.

Fluke explained at the hearing that as a student at a Jesuit campus that does not provide contraception, birth control costs can be as high as $3,000 during the time that she is in law school. She expressed opposition to a bill sponsored by Sen. Roy Blunt (R-Mo.) that would allow employers to avoid providing contraception for religious reasons.

“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,” Fluke had said.

(See also: Dems demand that GOP condemn Limbaugh)

On his show Wednesday, Limbaugh suggested that the reason Fluke cannot afford birth control methods is because she is having too much sex.

“Can you imagine if you’re her parents how proud of Sandra Fluke you would be? Your daughter goes up to a congressional hearing conducted by the Botox-filled Nancy Pelosi and testifies she’s having so much sex she can’t afford her own birth control pills and she agrees that Obama should provide them, or the Pope,” he said, according to a transcript of his show.

“Well, I guess now we know why Bill Clinton went to Georgetown and why Hillary went to Wellesley,” he continued. “All the sex going on at Georgetown. Sandra Fluke. So much sex going on, they can’t afford birth control pills.”

Pelosi, along with a half-dozen other members of Congress, blasted the “vicious attacks” made against Fluke.

“She courageously spoke truth to power. As a result, today, she has been subject to attacks that are outside the circle of civilized discussion and that unmask the strong disrespect for women held by some in this country,” read a joint statement by the lawmakers that did not identify Limbaugh by name. “We call upon the Republican leaders in the House to condemn these vicious attacks on Ms. Fluke … Democrats will always stand up for women’s health and women’s voices.”

In an email to supporters, the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee also blasted Limbaugh.

“Standing up for women’s health care does not make you a ‘slut’ or a ‘prostitute,’” the DCCC email read. “Rush and the right-wing Republicans in Congress who promote their radical War on Women must be held accountable for this.”

In a 51-48 vote, the Senate defeated the Blunt amendment on Thursday. Sen. Maria Cantwell (D-Wash.), who spoke out against the provision on the Senate floor prior to the vote, also joined the chorus of condemnation against Limbaugh.

“There is no call for those kinds of comments. Those are very inappropriate and they should be repudiated by lots of people,” she said on MSNBC. “Let’s not go backwards here. Let’s go forwards. And yes, we are going to have to have our voices loudly heard if we are going to make this case because we are just wasting time by debating it over and over and over again.”

Despite the outrage of Democrats, Limbaugh continued his barrage on Thursday and mocked the left for having a “conniption fit” about his remarks the day before.

“That has sent them into orbit. Pelosi’s in orbit, still talking about it on the House floor, the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee sent out an immediately fundraising letter with a picture of me looking like a Dracula,” Limbaugh said on his show. “At least I didn’t call her a woman driver!”

Discussing the topic for more than an hour of his three-hour afternoon show on Thursday, the radio host extended a mock “compromise” to Fluke and Democratic lawmakers.

“I will buy all of the women at Georgetown University as much aspirin to put between their knees as they want,” he said, in a reference to remarks made by Rick Santorum backer Foster Friess, who said last month, “You know, back in my days, they used Bayer aspirin for contraception. The gals put it between their knees, and it wasn’t that costly.”

Limbaugh continued to lace into Fluke, playing over and over again audio of a segment of her testimony on Capitol Hill, in which she said that the lack of contraception coverage at Georgetown was affecting countless women on campus.

“Ms. Fluke, have you ever heard of not having sex? Have you ever heard of not having sex so often? What next that you can’t afford are you going to go to Pelosi and say we need to buy? Mink? A Volt? A Prius? What next are you going to want, Ms. Fluke, that you see etched in misery on the faces of fellow students of Georgetown?” Limbaugh said.

As he condemned the law student for portraying the lack of birth control coverage as the “latest killer disease” brought upon by Republicans, Limbaugh added, “So Ms. Fluke and the rest of you Feminazis, here’s the deal: If you are going to pay for your contraceptives and thus pay for you to have sex, we want something for it. And I’ll tell you want it is. We want you to post the videos online so we can all watch.”

Asked about Limbaugh’s latest comments, Pelosi spokesman Drew Hammill told POLITICO in an email Thursday, “We’ve made a statement regarding this kind of rhetoric and we’re not going to further dignify this continued disrespect for women with a comment. We would hope the House Republican leadership would condemn this type of disrespectful behavior.”

DCCC spokesman Jesse Ferguson also turned the spotlight on the GOP, saying, “Rush Limbaugh has come to Republicans’ defense in their War on Women but now the real question is whether Republicans are willing to stand up to him and his repulsive attacks on women.”