To the contrary, her statement referred to support without limitation for the Affordable Care Act contraceptive coverage regulation. As supporting examples, she described one case of polycystic ovarian syndrome (which, interestingly, was covered by Georgetown’s policy because it was not intended to prevent pregnancy, although she pointed out that other religious institutions did not draw that line); endometriosis (as you mention); and even mistaken assumptions (female who declined to seek medical assistance after sexual assault because she wrongly assumed it would not be covered).
She certainly did not mention having loads of sex as a supporting example, but neither was her support for the regulation limited in any way to the medical aspects of it.
Not really. There is a third category for the purpose of defamation law. Limited purpose public figures are those people who become famous because they associate themselves with a cause and become identified with that cause. (Think Cindy Sheehan before she went off the rails, Terry Rakolta, or the Tillman family.) As long as any jokes and comments are about these people within the context of their public activities, they’re fair game. Once you cross into the person’s private life, you’re wandering into defamation and unsafe territory.
I’m not a lawyer, either, but I have studied defamation law.
If Ms. Fluke decides to sue, her lawyer can make the argument that between Limbaugh’s status as a Republican kingmaker (based on the public actions of various Republicans, who know they can’t afford to piss him off if they want to keep their jobs) and his high ratings, as well as comments left on his Facebook page, that there are people who take him and his opinions seriously. He’s an entertainer, true, but he’s an entertainer who is capable of shaping public opinion on a fairly broad scale.
But if I were her, I’d let the case be tried in the court of public opinion. Defamation, as others have pointed out, is a bitch to prove in court. Better to let his advertisers bail and better to let him hang himself with his own words and actions than to try the case in court and risk him becoming even stronger if he wins.
Kidding aside, this is the problem for her in bringing suit. Her sex life would be thrown open to discovery.
In practice, of course, Limbaugh might be better advised to settle quickly than to drag out a messy discovery process that would risk alienating advertisers even further.
I’m inclined to agree that this isn’t libel. However it’s moronic and dickish in the extreme, so I’m trying to enjoy watching Limbaugh get what he deserves.
This is my analysis of the situation. He wasn’t saying that she literally has sex with men in exchange for money. He’s expressing an opinion that wanting coverage for her contraceptives is comparable to prostitution.
That’s also an opinion. Defamation claims are based on false statements of fact, not opinion.
I guess, but “slut” is a pretty vaguely defined word, as opposed to “prostitute”, where everyone more or less agrees on the definition. Assuming she’s had at least one extra-marital sex partner, then in the eyes of someone like Santorumn, I imagine Fluke probably is a slut.
Rush certainly insuted Ms. Fluke and went too far in doing so… but slander? Not at all.
The moment ANY person willingly stands up and makes controversial testimony before Congress, he/she becomes a public figure, and I dont see any way he/she can claim to be libelled or slandered when a media commentator insults him or her.
This would hold true even if the person giving testimony agreed with me. If an ordinary Christian housewife gave testimony against abortion before a Congressional panel, I don’t believe she’d have any right to sue for slander or libel if Bill Maher called her “a fascist c–t.” in an HBO monologue. That would be vile and repulsive, but not slanderous.
Once you put yourself in the public eye and make political statements, you’re fair game.
Actually, you’re not “fair game” merely by testifying before Congress.
But in any case, all the examples you give are statements of opinion. That’s the reason they’re not defamatory.
As an aside, broadcast statements are potentially libelous, not slanderous. Slander refers to ephemeral speech, not speech that is recorded or broadcast. In the interest of keeping things simple, it might be better just to refer to defamation, rather than libel or slander.
I don’t think that’s a necessary correlate from her statement. She’s saying that for women that are on public interest scholarships that it would entail an entire summer’s salary, not that women that consume as much contraceptives as her would expend an entire summer’s salary. Though I can imagine that this would infuriate Limbaugh, as a “summer’s salary” translates into several million (rather than $3000) for him.
I was going to say the same thing, but he did restrict it a bit by saying you’re fair game if you’re testifying to Congress about a controversial topic. That’s less unreasonable. Saying that everybody who testifies to Congress is now a public figure goes too far - there have to be thousands of people who do that every year, and most are relatively unknown to the public at large, so it’s unfair to say that all of them are now public figures and have to meet this very high standard to prove libel or slander. Fluke did testify on a controversial topic and she was a committed activist, so there’s a somewhat stronger case that she is a public figure.
Actually, defamatory broadcast speech is called libelous solely because it’s presumed that it was written down before it was read aloud on air, such as a newscaster reading a script from a teleprompter.
So, in this case, I’d still say that if Rush’s words were indeed defamatory, that this would be properly called slander, as he did not read from a written script (the words came spontaneously from his own diseased brain, right?).
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I don’t think she ever did testify before Congress, did she? She was invited to but then blocked by Darrel Issa, and then later gave an address to House Dems.
FWIW Limbaugh (as of March 5) launched 46 personal attacks on Fluke over the course of several days. Not sure how much it matters in a slander case but at the least Limbaugh does not look able to say it was a one-time slip of the tongue. He double and tripled down on his comments about her.