Lighten Up, College Students, Aspirin-Between-the-Legs is Abstinence, Which Is “Still a Form of Birth Control”
A GOP leader in Colorado tells pro-choice college students, protesting at a Republican fundraiser featuring Foster "aspirin-between-their-legs" Friess, to lighten up and appreciate that abstinence is a form of birth control. But what about the common forms of birth control that some GOP leaders want to ban?
Pro-choice activists from Colorado State University shouldn’t have a problem with GOP donor Foster Friess’ joke about how the cost of birth control could be reduced if women would just put aspirin between their legs.
That’s what talk-radio host Devon Lentz, a board member of the Larimer County, Colorado, Republican Party, told listeners Monday.
Because putting aspirin between your legs, if you’re a woman, is a form of “abstinence, which is still a form of birth control,” Lentz told her Colorado AM listeners on KFKA radio in Greeley, Colorado:
“Their shirts said something about how everybody should be allowed to have birth control, be allowed access to birth control,” Lentz said on the radio. “Foster’s joke about how in his time women held an aspirin between their knees I’m pretty sure still goes to abstinence, which is still a form of birth control. And he was being funny. It was funny. These guys can’t laugh. These women were outraged he could make such a statement. They didn’t even know what they were standing out there doing.”
Lentz told listeners she “sent somebody out there to go talk to [the protesters],” and they didn’t really know “what [Friess’] statement was, let alone what it meant.”
Given that they had symbolic aspirin between their legs, you have to wonder why the GOP scout thought the protesters were clueless about their own protest.
I have to think it’s really hard for an adult woman to be clutching fake aspirin between her legs and not understand the point.
Especially after Friess got all that attention for saying contraception need not be so expensive because, in his day, “The gals put [Bayer Aspirin] between their knees, and it wasn’t that costly.” Friess, who’s now supporting Mitt Romney, later apologized.
So I called up Lentz, who organized the Friess event, and her co-radio-host Tom Lucero, who was the Master of Ceremonies, to find out why they didn’t dispense with the stealth reconnaissance of the college students, and simply have them on their radio show to find out what they knew about Friess and the issues at play.
Lentz didn’t call me back, but Lucero, who’s a former Republican county official in Colorado, told me he was “not the guy who went out and interviewed [the protesters].”
“I took Devon’s comments to mean they didn’t know who Foster Friess was,” Lucero told me. “We would probably need to get further clarification.”
Asked if he’d have the student activists on his show to discuss the issue, Lucero said: “Absolutely, if they’re interested in coming on the show and talking about it, we’re willing to take anyone as guests.” He offered to schedule a specific time in advance.
I’d love to hear Lentz tell the protesters that Friess, if you take his aspirin comments seriously, was promoting abstinence as a “form birth control” and had nothing to do with the broader GOP attacks on common forms of birth control.
I’m sure they’d be relieved.