Schadenfreude, according to Webster, is "enjoyment obtained from the troubles of others."  It encapsulates the essence of women using government to force others to pay for their contraception.

The fraud is in hustling the con as a women's health issue.  It makes sense only to abortion zealots who think pregnancy is a disease or a parasite.

The grand dame of abortion rights, Minority House Leader Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.), held a little Republican-bashing session with three members of the "House Democratic Steering and Policy Committee" on Feb. 23, which she and her media friends passed off as a "congressional hearing."

Pelosi said the "hearing" was for taking "testimony" from Sandra Fluke, a 30-year-old third-year student at Georgetown University Law School.  According to Pelosi, Fluke "was blocked from testifying at a recent Oversight and Government Reform Committee hearing by Chairman Darrell Issa (R-CA)."

Also blocked were 312 million other Americans irrelevant to the hearing topic.

Pelosi introduced Fluke as "the president and secretary of the Georgetown Law Students for Reproductive Justice," which, she did not mention, unjustly discriminates against unborn women.

They're fighting imaginary bogeymen who want to "ban" birth control, much like people who want to "ban food" because they don't want to pay a stranger's restaurant tab.

Pelosi also said that "Sandra will continue to serve women and our committees as a leader in the field of public interest law."  Sounds like there's a taxpayer-funded job in Congress awaiting Sandra where she will be free from the burden and oppression of having to pay for her own birth control, which she claims costs $3,000 for three years.

Fluke said she hears daily from women "from Georgetown or from another school or who [work] for a religiously-affiliated employer" who've "suffered financially and emotionally and medically because of this lack of coverage."

Where are those Hollywood catastrophe fundraisers when you need one?

Any person who can get admitted to Georgetown Law School should be able to find the Planned Parenthood clinic 1.7 miles from her school, or perhaps affirmative action has run amok once again.

If Planned Parenthood runs out of free birth control pills, a 30-day supply sells for $9 at the Target near Georgetown.  That would be $324 for three years, leaving $2,676 for candles and wine.

Georgetown doesn't include contraception in its student health care insurance because it's a Catholic school.  Fluke admits that she chose Georgetown for the purpose of changing its policy, according to the Washington Post.  Fluke also wrote an article arguing for insurance coverage for sex-change surgeries.

Talk about church reform.  Martin Luther, step aside.

Remember the shrieks -- "Keep Your Rosaries off My Ovaries!"?  Thanks to the ObamaCare mandate, it's now -- "Their Ovaries Trump Your Rosaries."

Compounding the comedy of errors, Rush Limbaugh made uncouth comments about Fluke on his radio show, for which he rightly apologized, and which Fluke dismissed as "insufficient."  Forgiveness could curtail her victimization tour of mainstream media.

It reminded Obama to never let a crisis go to waste.  He interrupted his nonstop campaigning to make a phone call to Fluke on March 2, just before she appeared with Andrea Mitchell on MSNBC.  According to Fluke, "[h]e did express his concern for me and wanted to make sure that I was OK, which I am."

What a relief.  It was touch and go there for a while.

Obama continued chapter two of "I'm Down in the Polls with Women" at his press conference on March 6.  He said he called Fluke because she made him think about his daughters:

And the reason I called Ms. Fluke is because I thought about Malia and Sasha, and one of the things I want them to do as they get older is to engage in issues they care about, even ones I may not agree with them on. I want them to be able to speak their mind in a civil and thoughtful way. And I don't want them attacked or called horrible names because they're being good citizens.

Chris Matthews got all tingly again because Obama's call to Fluke reminded Matthews of President John F. Kennedy's call to Coretta Scott King, the wife of Martin Luther King, after her husband was arrested in Georgia.

Maybe Matthews will apologize for being a flippant white guy, and Obama can call the King family.  His polls aren't so hot with black Americans, either.

It isn't just fanatical feminists who cause pain and embarrassment to thinking women and men.

Seriously, Mr. President, if you're short of role models for your daughters, here's a great one you missed.

Stephanie Decker is a 36-year-old mother who put her body between her two small children and the crashing steel beams, pillars, and bricks that landed on her back and legs when a tornado destroyed their three-story home.  Stephanie prayed and kept telling herself to keep fighting: "We can make it.  I gotta live for my kids."  She suffered broken ribs and lost parts of both legs.  Her children didn't have a scratch.  Stephanie is in a hospital bed in Indianapolis.  This is a woman with real health issues who will continue to endure real suffering, not the "suffering" of doing without birth control pills.

Stephanie doesn't consider herself a hero.  "I call myself a mom," she said.  "I love my kids...I wanted to do anything I could to protect them.  I think any parent would."

Maybe you could take another few minutes from campaigning, Mr. President, and tell Stephanie that the whole country is proud of her, express your concern, make sure she's okay.

She withstood so much more than harsh, hyperbolic bluster from a radio host.  There's nowhere to go to get an apology about a tornado.

Jan LaRue is senior legal analyst with the American Civil Rights Union.