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Related: Editorials & Other Articles, Issue Forums, Alliance Forums, Region ForumsSandra Fluke's Statement in its Entirety
Maybe it's been posted before, but it's worth reading for its astounding misrepresentation by the RW and Limbaugh.
My name is Sandra Fluke, and Im a third-year student at Georgetown Law School. Im also a past-president of Georgetown Law Students for Reproductive Justice or LSRJ. And Id like to acknowledge my fellow LSRJ members and allies and all of the student activists with us and thank them so much for being here today.
(Applause)
We, as Georgetown LSRJ, are here today because were so grateful that this regulation implements the non-partisan medical advice of the Institute of Medicine.
I attend a Jesuit law school that does not provide contraceptive coverage in its student health plan. And just as we students have faced financial, emotional, and medical burdens as a result, employees at religiously-affiliated hospitals and institutions 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 or Jesuit institutions.
When I look around my campus, I see the faces of the women affected by this lack of contraceptive coverage.
And especially in the last week, I have heard more and more of their stories. On a daily basis, I hear yet from another woman from Georgetown or from another school or who works for a religiously-affiliated employer, and they tell me that they have suffered financially and emotionally and medically because of this lack of coverage.
And so, Im here today to share their voices, and I want to thank you for allowing them not me to be heard.
Without insurance coverage, contraception, as you know, can cost a woman over $3,000 during law school. For a lot of students who, like me, are on public interest scholarships, thats practically an entire summers salary. 40% of the female students at Georgetown Law reported to us that they struggle financially as a result of this policy.
One told us about how embarrassed and just powerless she felt when she was standing at the pharmacy counter and learned for the first time that contraception was not covered on her insurance and she had to turn and walk away because she couldnt afford that prescription. Women like her have no choice but to go without contraception.
Just last week, a married female student told me that she had to stop using contraception because she and her husband just couldnt fit it into their budget anymore. Women employed in low-wage jobs without contraceptive coverage face the same choice.
And some might respond that contraception is accessible in lots of other ways. Unfortunately, thats just not true.
Womens health clinic provide a vital medical service, but as the Guttmacher Institute has definitely documented, these clinics are unable to meet the crushing demand for these services. Clinics are closing, and women are being forced to go without the medical care they need.
How can Congress consider the [Rep. Jeff] Fortenberry (R-Neb.), [Sen. Marco] Rubio (R-Fla.) and [Sen. Roy] Blunt (R-Mo.) legislation to allow even more employers and institutions to refuse contraception 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 de-fund those very same clinics?
These denial of contraceptive coverage impact real people.
In the worst cases, women who need these medications for other medical conditions suffer very dire consequences.
A friend of mine, for example, has polycystic ovarian syndrome, and she has to take prescription birth control to stop cysts from growing on her ovaries. Her prescription is technically covered by Georgetowns insurance because its not intended to prevent pregnancy.
Unfortunately, under many religious institutions and insurance plans, it wouldnt be. There would be no exception for other medical needs. And under Sen. Blunts amendment, Sen. Rubios bill or Rep. Fortenberrys bill theres no requirement that such an exception be made for these medical needs.
When this exception does exist, these exceptions dont 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 are not, womens health takes a back seat to a bureaucracy focused on policing her body.
In 65% of the cases at our school, our female students were interrogated by insurance representatives and university medical staff about why they needed prescription and whether they were lying about their symptoms.
For my friend and 20% of the women in her situation, she never got the insurance company to cover her prescription. Despite verifications of her illness from her doctor, her claim was denied repeatedly on the assumption that she really wanted birth control to prevent pregnancy. Shes gay. So clearly polycystic ovarian syndrome was a much more urgent concern than accidental pregnancy for her.
After months paying over $100 out-of-pocket, she just couldnt afford her medication anymore, and she 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 the night in her final exam period shed been in the emergency room. Shed been there all night in just terrible, excruciating pain. She wrote to me, It was so painful Id woke up thinking Ive 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 as a result.
On the morning I was originally scheduled to give this testimony, she was sitting in a doctors office, trying to cope with the consequences of this medical catastrophe.
Since last years surgery, shes been experiencing night sweats and weight gain and other symptoms of early menopause as a result of the removal of her ovary. Shes 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 choice at giving my mother her desperately desired grandbabies simply because the insurance policy that I paid for, totally unsubsidized by my school, wouldnt 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 such an early age increased risk of cancer, heart disease, osteoporosis she may never be able to conceive a child.
Some may say that my friends tragic story is rare. Its not. I wish it were
One woman told us doctors believe she has endometriosis, but that cant be proven without surgery. So the insurance has not been willing to cover her medication the contraception she needs to treat her endometriosis.
Recently, another woman told me that she also has polycystic ovarian syndrome and shes struggling to pay for her medication and is terrified to not have access to it.
Due to the barriers erected by Georgetowns policy, she hasnt been reimbursed for her medications since last August.
I sincerely pray that we dont 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.
Because this is the message that not requiring coverage of contraception sends: A womans reproductive health care isnt a necessity, isnt a priority.
One woman told us that she knew birth control wasnt covered on the insurance and she assumed that thats how Georgetowns insurance handle all of womens reproductive and sexual health care. So when she was raped, she didnt go to the doctor, even to be examined or tested for sexually transmitted infections, because she thought insurance wasnt going to cover something like that something that was related to a womans reproductive health.
As one other student put it: This policy communicates to female students that our school doesnt understand our needs.
These are not feelings that male fellow student experience and theyre not burdens that male students must shoulder.
In the media lately, some conservative Catholic organizations have been asking what did we expect when we enroll in 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 problem this policy created for us as students, they would help us.
We expected that when 94% of students oppose 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 we should have gone to school elsewhere.
And even if that meant going to a less prestigious university, we refuse to pick between a quality education and our health. And we resent that in the 21st century, anyone think its acceptable to ask us to make this choice simply because we are women.
Many of the women whose stories Ive shared today are Catholic women. So ours is not a war against the church. It is a struggle for the access to the health care we need.
The President of the Association of Jesuit Colleges has shared that Jesuit colleges and the universities appreciate the modifications to the rule announced recently. Religious concerns are addressed and women get the health care they need. And I sincerely hope that that is something we can all agree upon.
Thank you very much.
JDPriestly
(57,936 posts)She didn't speak about her own sex life. Limbaugh's statement on his accusations does not begin to correct the lies he appears to have told.
Shame on Rush Limbaugh for picking on an intelligent, sweet, caring young woman.