Rush Limbaugh renewed his war on birth control Wednesday during a vitroilic rant against the Affordable Care Act provision mandating free contraception.
The conservative radio host took on a handful of ads created by Colorado Consumer Health Initiative and ProgressNow Colorado Education, which tout the benefits of the health reform law. Limbaugh’s ire was focused on a particularly controversial ad that plays up the law’s free birth control with an image of a young woman who appears excited to get “between the covers” with a young man.
“What these ads are really promising, if you like your risky promiscuous lifestyle, you can keep it. That’s what Obama’s promising,” Limbaugh said. “If you like being promiscuous, you can keep on being promiscuous. If you like being a prostitute, then have at it.”
“OMG, he’s hot! Let’s hope he’s as easy to get as this birth control. My health insurance covers the pill, which means all I have to worry about is getting him between the covers,” the text on the advertisement says, next to a picture of a man and woman, the latter holding what looks like birth control pills in her hand.
Limbaugh’s assumption that only promiscuous women would appreciate the free birth control mandate stretches back to his attacks March 2012 on Sandra Fluke, the student activist who spoke out in favor of the mandate on Capitol Hill last year. Back then, he infamously called her a “slut” and Wednesday he argued that these ads have proved his attacks were spot on.
Limbaugh is far from the only critic of the new ads. Rep. Steve Stockman chimed in similarly on Tuesday, blasting that Democrats had “turned sex into a government entitlement.”
This is an actual Obamacare ad. Democrats have somehow turned sex into a government entitlement. pic.twitter.com/oECxllIuZC
— Rep. Steve Stockman (@SteveWorks4You) November 12, 2013
While Limbaugh and Stockman may be convinced that the birth control mandate is a negative, most Americans disagree with him. A poll from Lifeway Research conducted last year found that about two thirds of Americans supported the requirement, even in cases in which the employer providing the insurance disargees with the provision for religious reasons. Only 28% disagreed with the requirement.
Morgan Whitaker