Sandra Fluke Now Has a Human Right to Taxpayer-Financed Birth Control

Every so often, I share breakthrough stories about advances in “human rights” around the world.

• In France, it is against the law to say your husband is under-endowed or that your wife is fat.
• Across Europe, a satellite dish is now a human right.
• In Finland, broadband access is a basic right.
• There’s now an entitlement for free soccer broadcasts in Europe.
• In Italy, you have the right to…um…your testicles.

Now, in honor of Sandra Fluke, the United Nations has decided that contraception is a human right. Not just a human right, a universal human right. The New York Times reports on this big news.

The United Nations says access to contraception is a universal human right that could dramatically improve the lives of women and children in poor countries.

So what’s the big deal? Surely people should have the right to buy a condom.

Paid for with your tax dollars?

Yes, but we’re talking about the United Nations, so you won’t be surprised to learn that there shouldn’t be any “financial barriers” to birth control, which means  people have the right to have other people pay for their fun and games.

It effectively declares that legal, cultural and financial barriers to accessing contraception and other family planning measures are an infringement of women’s rights. …The global body also says increasing funding for family planning by a further $4.1 billion could save $11.3 billion annually in health bills for mothers and newborns in poor countries.

Well, Sandra Fluke surely will be happy about this news. Even though national governments safely can ignore U.N. pronouncements, this is yet another sign of a growing dependency mindset.

P.S. Speaking of Sandra Fluke, you can enjoy some laughs with this great Reason video, this funny cartoon, and four more jokes here.

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Another Reason TV Video: Mocking Ms. Fluke, Remy Says It’s Time for a Cough Drop Mandate

I’ve already posted some humor about Sandra Fluke and the Obama Administration’s contraception mandate, including this set of four cartoons and posters.

But the folks at Reason TV always do things worth sharing, so here’s a video about a cough drop mandate. As you can see, a healthy dose of sarcasm.

By the way, if you want something more serious about the issue, including a discussion of third-party payer and the proper role of insurance, check out the excellent analysis of Prof. Cochrane in this post.

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Fluke Humor

I’m a big fan of political humor, particularly when it exposes absurdity. This is why I shared all these jokes (here, here, here, here, here, and here) about the Occupy Wall Street crowd.

But I also appreciate good jokes that target me and other libertarians (here, here, here, here, and here).

If I had to pick a favorite, though, it would be the jokes that teach economics. That’s why I like this joke about Keynesian economics, this cartoon about Obama’s stimulus, this video on Halloween taxes, this cartoon about the minimum wage, and this joke about the perverse incentives of redistribution.

And it’s also why I shared the cartoon yesterday about Ms. Fluke and the controversy over the birth control mandate.

This motivated readers to send several others, all of which make the point that this is an issue about subsidies and redistribution, not birth control.

Here’s one that was posted on the Powerline blog.

This one’s obviously a photoshop creation, but definitely appeals to me because of my support for the 2nd Amendment.

And here are a couple of posters featuring Ms. Fluke.

I especially like these two posters because there’s no attempt to personally demonize Ms. Fluke. It’s her ideas are bad because she wants to coerce others.

I’m not making an indirect dig at Limbaugh, by the way, who does a rather impressive job of staying on the right side of the line while spending three hours every day trying to be funny, entertaining, and informative. I shudder to think how often I would step in you-know-what if I tried to do the same thing.

Instead, my goal is to change hearts and minds. We won’t win the battle for liberty if we focus on personalities as opposed to ideas.

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