An hour before her
live Q&A
with the Huffington Post, Sandra Fluke met with me at a Starbuck's
(even though she doesn't drink coffee) to talk about her campaign to
empower women.
The contraception debate and Rush Limbaugh's personal insults are
what placed Fluke in the spotlight, and her concerns are not over. The
Affordable Health Choices Act requires all university health care plans
to provide free contraception starting in August 2012. But religiously
affiliated universities are allowed to request a one-year delay in
providing contraception -- and those requests are being made right now,
often without student input.
"This is inevitable at this point -- there's no reason to deny
coverage for another year and make these women wait longer when they
have real medical needs right now," Fluke said, who goes to a Georgetown
Law -- a university affiliated with the Catholic Church. She encourages
students to find out what decisions their administrations are making,
and take action to make sure contraception is on the agenda. "Students
will soon become engulfed in finals, so the time for action is today."
But Fluke is also using her media spotlight to highlight a number of
other issues that women in America are facing today -- continuing a
century-long struggle that
Margaret Sanger began in the 1910's.
Sanger, who was one of eleven children, devoted her life to
legalizing birth control, beginning her advocacy during a time when
women did not even have the right to vote. Although birth control
prevented unwanted pregnancies, Sanger was concerned with the health
risks associated with many womens' self-conducted abortions (often
leading to illness or death). Of women who aborted their own
pregnancies,
76 percent faced health complications.
In 1921, after years of opposition and getting herself arrested for
providing contraception illegally, she founded the American Birth
Control League, which later became Planned Parenthood. But although
Sanger
can be criticized
for some of her other political positions, Fluke says the women's
activist started a war for justice that women are still fighting today.
"I'm not sure it's even a different battle, it's just an ongoing
one," Fluke said. "Clearly, Ms. Sanger lived in a different time and not
all of her positions are ones that I would agree with, but she was
definitely a pioneer in thinking about women's reproductive health and
needs and standing up for them."
Particularly important to Fluke is the Violence Against Women Act - a
bill that is up for reauthorization this year. Some members of Congress
are attempting to make the services that the bill gives to victim's of
sexual assault
less available to women,
by lowering the age group that services are available to (including
counseling, legal aid, victim programs, and funding for rape crisis
centers, and protections for victims of domestic violence).
"Domestic violence is still rampant in our country and that's
unacceptable in the type of industrialized wealth country that we have,"
Fluke said. "I'm hoping that young women will contact their senators
about that. What we need is for Senator Harry Reid to bring the bill to
the floor for a vote as soon as the Senate gets back in session in
April."
What disappointments Fluke is that the bill, which has been around since
1994, is causing bipartisanship in Congress, with conservatives
fighting against expanding the budget for domestic violence programs.
The
new version of the bill
would increase free legal assistance to victims of domestic violence,
include women who are victims of stalking, and increase coverage to
include illegal immigrants and same-sex couples.
Another cause that Fluke, who is unsure about her own post-graduation
plans, is taking up: bringing more women into politics. Currently,
women make up only
17 percent of Congress, and Fluke thinks this number should be closer to 50.
"If we had equal representation in government, we'd pay more
attention to the issues that affect women," she said. But those women
who do make it into powerful political positions are the ones that Fluke
admires.
"Women who are in powerful political positions are real role models
for us and I'd love to see more and more women going in that direction,"
she said.
Her own role model? Sandra Day O'Conner, the first female member of the US Supreme Court.
"She was the first woman on the Supreme Court and she had the same
first name that I did," Fluke said, remembering her childhood heroes. "I
thought that was just really cool when I was really little. She went on
the court in 1981, and I was born in 1981, so when I was little that
was a pretty big deal - it's still a pretty big deal."
Although rumors about Fluke running for office have been spread by
the media, one thing is clear: she will continue to fight for women's
issues.
"There are so many issues, and to assume as a generation that the
work has been done for us and we can just move on without engaging on
those issues is just absolutely wrong," she said, before rushing to her
Live Q&A with the Huffington Post.
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