Ryan Dobson, the son of Focus on the Family founder James Dobson, is joining his fellow conservative commentators in attacking Georgetown law student Sandra Fluke. Yesterday on Family Talk’s Grounded, he railed against President Obama for calling and thanking Fluke after she testified in favor of a mandatory insurance coverage for contraceptives. Fluke testified that many of her fellow Georgetown students must spend $3,000 over the course of three years on contraception because the school refuses to cover it in their insurance plans.
Dobson charged that Obama “belittled himself by calling her” since she “sleeps around enough to where she’s struggling financially because she can’t afford contraception.”
Dobson must have missed the Associated Press story confirming that without insurance coverage, contraceptives can indeed cost $1,000 a year. He also likely never read Fluke’s testimony, in which she pointed out that contraceptives are medically necessary to treat ovarian cysts, endometriosis, hormonal disorders and early menopause, along with preventing unwanted pregnancies.
And, along with many of Fluke’s right-wing attackers, Dobson seems to have missed the fact that the amount of contraception a woman needs is unrelated to the amount that she “sleeps around.”
Dobson: President Obama calls [Sandra Fluke] and says ‘I called you because of my own daughters, your parents must be proud.’ Really? Seriously? So Obama, when your daughter is a third year student at a college who sleeps around enough to where she’s struggling financially because she can’t afford contraception, that’s going to make you proud of your daughter? I cannot imagine a father in this country or anywhere that wakes up in the morning and is like, ‘I’m so glad my daughter sleeps around; it just makes me so proud that my daughter is sleeping around and spending money on contraception.’
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I just think it’s such a bad precedent for the president, for the President, the President of the United States, belittled himself by calling her.
