Sandra Fluke Exploits Akin Dustup to Raise Money for Obama

National   |   Steven Ertelt   |   Aug 23, 2012   |   11:46AM   |   Washington, DC

Pro-abortion activist Sandra Fluke is apparently on the Obama payroll now, as the president’s re-election campaign has called on her to en a fundraising email exploiting the controversy over Todd Akin’s abortion-rape comments to raise money.

Fluke gained national attention when she argued that the federal government should force Catholic organizations and others to pay for abortion-causing drugs and contraception against their religious beliefs. Fluke is now warming up for her primetime speaking slot at the Democratic convention in early September by sending out the fundraising email and referencing Akin’s comments about “legitimate rape.”

Fluke desperately tries to tie the campaign of Mitt Romney and Paul Ryan to the comments in an attempt to make them look extreme, despite the fact that both candidates have condemned the comments.

“Mitt Romney and Paul Ryan tried to distance themselves from the remark — but the fact is they’re in lockstep with Akin on the major women’s health issues of our time,” Fluke wrote. “Just this morning, the Republican Party voted to include the ‘Human Life Amendment’ in their platform, calling for a constitutional ban on abortions nationwide, even for rape victims.”

“Mitt Romney famously says he would “get rid of” Planned Parenthood if he had the chance. And both Romney and Ryan pledge to go back to a system where insurance companies can discriminate against women and charge us more than men for the same health insurance,” she contends.

“This controversy is not an accident, or a mistake, or an isolated incident. It’s a reflection of a Republican Party whose policies are dangerous for women,” she claimed.

Fluke condemns the Republican party for its new platform that is strongly pro-life, saying: “The party platform itself includes a “salute” to states that have pushed “informed consent” laws, such as those that force women seeking an abortion to first undergo an invasive and medically unnecessary ultrasound.”

Washington Post columnist Jennifer Rubin noticed the fundraising email and responded to it.

Sandra Fluke is now officially on the Obama for America payroll and sends out an e-mail announcing, “Mitt Romney and Paul Ryan tried to distance themselves from the [Todd Akin] remark — but the fact is they’re in lockstep with Akin on the major women’s health issues of our time.” Really? I thought they denounced him, tried to chase him out of the Senate race and said a Romney administration would favor the same three exceptions that have been in the Hyde Amendment (rape, incest, life of the mother) for decades. But facts, schmacts.

Rubin says the upcoming Democratic convention will be a celebration of abortion with Fluke and other pro-abortion activists like Planned Parenthood’s Cecile Richards, and NARAL’s Nancy Keenan on board.

CLICK LIKE IF YOU’RE PRO-LIFE!

 

It’s not clear if they will have a single abortion night or multiple nights on the subject. Maybe they could call their three convention nights “trimesters,” and on the last of these extol their devotion to late-term and partial-birth abortions.

It is, I think, appropriate to devote this much focus to abortion since there is no issue closer to the soul of the Democratic Party than the right to abort a baby for any reason at any time. No candidate for high office in the Democratic Party can say otherwise and expect to have a national presence. I mean when the media talk about an issue for days and days, it’s got to be important.

You think I’m joking? Listen, the Democratic Party is fourscore behind abortion on demand, radical environmentalism and tax hikes. These issues, we are told, are quite popular, so the Democratic Party should not be shy about touting them. These issues are what define them as Democrats, right? Let the Republicans talk about all that boring stuff like the private sector, energy (from underneath the ground, no less!), debt reduction and reforming entitlement programs. Borrrrring!