Sonnet for Sandra

Sandra Fluke, a law student at Georgetown University, was not permitted to testify before Darrell Issa’s committee investigating government intrusion into religious freedom, an issue that has focused on the issue of insurance-provided birth control.  In her testimony, presented at a hearing called by Nancy Pelosi, she stated that the absence of free birth control would pose a financial hardship to female students. The right, in the form of Rush Limbaugh and Craig Bannister, responded by calling her a “sex-crazed coed” and “a slut…a prostitute”, among other epithets.  These guys are a disgrace to whatever profession they claim to be representing.   

A female student of the law had asked

To testify to Issa’s group who sought

To bring out reasons why Obama ought

To change the regulations he had passed.

But to the student they said “Not so fast!

We want no women here.”  And so she brought

Her view that contraception costs a lot

To Ms. Pelosi’s meeting at long last.

The right wing pundits now respond with names

More fit for locker rooms than for debate.

They called her “sex-crazed”, “prostitute” and “slut”

They’re not a bit ashamed that this defames

A young and thoughtful woman. They create

Malignant hate with their destructive smut.