US president Barack Obama has called a law student express his support after she was branded a "slut" by talk-show host Rush Limbaugh for backing the government’s new contraception policy.
Sandra Fluke, a 30-year old student and women's rights activist at Georgetown University in Washington, has been caught in the middle of a contentious election-year fight between Mr Obama and Republicans over the policy, which requires health insurance plans to cover contraception.
Ms Fluke has spoken out against the Republican effort to scrap the birth control policy and advocated making contraception available to all women, drawing fire from right-wing commentator Limbaugh and some other conservatives.
Religious-affiliated organisations, the Catholic Church and social conservatives have argued Mr Obama's new policy is an infringement on religious liberty. An effort by Republicans in the Senate to overturn it failed this week.
Ms Fluke told a House Democratic Steering and Policy Committee hearing on Capitol Hill last month that female students at Georgetown, the oldest Catholic and Jesuit university in the country, suffered financial hardship because contraception was not covered by their healthcare insurance and in some cases had stopped taking it because it cost too much money.
Limbaugh first attacked Ms Fluke on Wednesday: "What does it say about the college co-ed Fluke who goes before a congressional committee and essentially says that she must be paid to have sex. What does that make her? It makes her a slut, right? Makes her a prostitute. She wants to be paid to have sex."
Limbaugh, an influential conservative commentator known for his take-no-prisoners style and shocking comments, is one of the most listened-to radio talk-show hosts in the country.
"If we are going to pay for your contraceptives, thus pay for you to have sex, we want something for it, and I'll tell you what it is: we want you to post the videos online so we can all watch," he added, repeating the slurs again on Thursday.
House of Representatives speaker John Boehner, the top Republican in Congress, distanced his party from Limbaugh's comments. A spokesman for Mr Boehner called them "inappropriate" in a statement that also criticised Democrats for using the issue to raise funds before the November election.
In an interview, Ms Fluke said she was initially hurt, then outraged by Limbaugh's remarks, but said she hoped the incident had raised awareness about the new policy.
She said had received "an avalanche" of supportive emails from women and men around the United States, including many from women who said they needed contraception to respond to medical conditions such as seizures, not just to prevent pregnancy.
She said Limbaugh's comments were meant to silence women who spoke out about their health care needs, but the attack had failed.
The president called "to offer his support and thank me for helping to make heard the voices of all the women who will benefit from this regulation," Ms Fluke said. "He just wanted to clearly express his distaste for the types of comments that have been made about me. He was very kind."
Ms Fluke said she had not ruled out suing Limbaugh for slander, but was focused on the policy debate for now.
White House spokesman Jay Carney said Mr Obama thinks Limbaugh's comments were reprehensible.
"It is disappointing that those kinds of personal and crude attacks could be levelled against someone like this young law school student, who was simply expressing her opinion on a matter of public policy," Mr Carney said.