Family Planning Farce. (1 Viewer)

[1069]

Family Planning Farce

The New York Times
Editorial
November 24, 2006


It sounds like a late-night parody of President Bush’s bad habit of filling key posts with extreme ideologues and incompetents. To head family planning programs at the Department of Health and Human Services, Mr. Bush has tapped Eric Keroack, a doctor affiliated with a group vehemently opposed to birth control and someone nationally known for his wacky theory about reproductive health.

Before his appointment, Dr. Keroack served as the medical director of A Woman’s Concern, a network of pregnancy counseling clinics across Massachusetts whose method of trying to dissuade women from having an abortion includes spreading the scary and medically inaccurate myth that having an abortion steeply increases the risk of breast cancer. The group also has a policy against dispensing contraception even to married women. It has stated on its Web site that the distribution of contraceptive drugs or devices is “demeaning to women, degrading of human sexuality and adverse to human health and happiness.”

>snip<

When speaking at abstinence conferences across the country, and in his writings, Dr. Keroack has promoted the novel argument that sex with multiple partners alters brain chemistry in a way that makes it harder for women to form bonding relationships. One of the researchers cited by Dr. Keroack has called the claim “complete pseudoscience” unsupported by her findings.

Armed with these credentials, Dr. Keroack has been drafted to lead the federal office that finances birth control, pregnancy tests, breast cancer screening and other critical health care services for five million poor people annually, and to advise Health and Human Services Secretary Michael Leavitt on family planning issues. Americans who were expecting a more moderate administration in the wake of this month’s elections may find all this shocking. But to the unchastened Bush White House, apparent opposition to contraceptives, abortion and science was the opposite of disqualifying.

>snip<

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Whether or not you agree with Keroack's ideology, is his appointment to a policy-making national family planning position appropriate, in light of the fact that the overwhelming majority of Americans do not share his beliefs?
Your thoughts on Keroack.

 

[Justagurl]

It makes no sense to me..How does an abstinence advocate help the family planning programs at the Department of Health and Human Services ? A really bad choice.

 

[jfuh]

It makes no sense to me..How does an abstinence advocate help the family planning programs at the Department of Health and Human Services ? A really bad choice.

Same way an oil industry lobbiest gets the position to edit EPA reports on climate change - this even ad mist the fact the guy had no scientific back ground whatsoever. Bush and co are simply trying to create a partisan atmosphere where ppl fight amongst themselves while he abuses his power.
him and his administration just wishes that everyone would blindly entrust him faithfully - pathetic.

 

[doughgirl]

"Whether or not you agree with Keroack's ideology, is his appointment to a policy-making national family planning position appropriate, in light of the fact that the overwhelming majority of Americans do not share his beliefs?"

How do you know that the overwhelming majority don't share his beliefs?

Do you think we need someone appointed who says the more partners you have the more open minded and sexually hip you are? That there are no increased problems for society and with people who sleep round.

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[jallman]

"Whether or not you agree with Keroack's ideology, is his appointment to a policy-making national family planning position appropriate, in light of the fact that the overwhelming majority of Americans do not share his beliefs?"

How do you know that the overwhelming majority don't share his beliefs?

Do you think we need someone appointed who says the more partners you have the more open minded and sexually hip you are? That there are no increased problems for society and with people who sleep round.

I really don't want to start off on the wrong foot here, doughgirl...and I am being genuine in my request. Could you please elaborate on how any of this relates to the OP or the points listed afterward? I am sure you have a connection but I am just not seeing it...

 

[1069]

How do you know that the overwhelming majority don't share his beliefs?

Because Guttmacher says so (as does every other reputable source, from the American College of Obstetrics and Gynecology to the Mayo Foundation for Medical Education and Research to the FDA to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention).
If "the overwhelming majority" agreed with our new Head of Family Planning Programs at the US Department of Health and Human Services, who claims to oppose contraception on the grounds that contraception demeans women, then I don't suppose 93% of all fertile, sexually active women in the US would currently be availing themselves of birth control.
That wouldn't make much sense, now would it?

Virtually all women (98%) aged 15-44 who have ever had intercourse have used at least one contraceptive method. 4

• Overall, 62% of the 62 million women aged 15-44 are currently using a contraceptive method. 5

• 31% of the 62 million women do not need a method because they are infertile; are pregnant, postpartum or trying to become pregnant; have never had intercourse; or are not sexually active. 6

• Thus, only 7% of women aged 15-44 are at risk of unwanted pregnancy but are not using contraceptives. 7

• Among the 42 million fertile, sexually active women who do not want to become pregnant, 89% are practicing contraception. 8

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Do you think we need someone appointed who says the more partners you have the more open minded and sexually hip you are?

Strawman fallacy, as per usual.
I think those appointed to leadership roles and policy-making positions in government should serve the public interests; that's what they're there for.
They work for us, actually, not vice versa, a distinction the Bush admin has never really seemed to comprehend.
It doesn't matter; when the new congress takes over in January, they'll oust him.
I only wish they had the power to oust Bush, along with him.

I'll repeat my question, in case anyone has any serious reponse to make:

Whether or not you agree with Keroack's ideology, is his appointment to a policy-making national family planning position appropriate, in light of the fact that the overwhelming majority of Americans do not share his beliefs?

 

[talloulou]

This appointment was disappointing to me as well. Birth control is the best way to avoid pregnancy and I can't imagine a birth control opponent being in charge of family planning in any way, shape, or form. If this guy is really as anti-birth control as the media has made him out to be then I'd agree that most women would not be in support of him. There is a middle ground between complete and total debauchery and saving yourself for marriage. Birth control isn't going anywhere though so I'm not too worried. Personally I don't think the government really should be in the business of family planning and the idea that there is a huge budget for such bedroom invasive antics is odd enough in itself. I'm sure this guy will just shell out a few more $$$'s for abstinance programs. Not too big a deal in my opinion.

 

[hipsterdufus]

This story reminds me of Dr. David Hagel, a Bush appointee to the FDA, whose ex-wife sued him for anally raping her while she slept. Hagel's response was that he thought he was rapiing his wife vaginally.

Of course, that's wrong on so many levels.

1. Raping a sleeping spouse is ok if it's vaginally, but not anally?

2. Bush appointed a gynocologist that couldn't find his wife's vagina.

Of course Hager is a close friend of James Dobson. Hager is also reported to have paid his wife for sex acts that she wouldn't normally perform.

The moral of this story? There is no Bush appointee that will surprise me at this point....

 

[1069]

This story reminds me of Dr. David Hagel, a Bush appointee to the FDA, whose ex-wife sued him for anally raping her while she slept. Hagel's response was that he thought he was rapiing his wife vaginally.

Of course, that's wrong on so many levels.

1. Raping a sleeping spouse is ok if it's vaginally, but not anally?

2. Bush appointed a gynocologist that couldn't find his wife's vagina.

Of course Hager is a close friend of James Dobson. Hager is also reported to have paid his wife for sex acts that she wouldn't normally perform.

The moral of this story? There is no Bush appointee that will surprise me at this point....

Yeah, I remember reading a transcript of an interview with the wife in that situation; according to her, he'd beg her for anal sex. She'd tell him no, and he'd rape her, then leave a hundred dollars on the dresser.
This happened so often that after awhile, they just skipped the preliminaries and got right down to brass tacks.
When she wanted money for something (he controlled the family finances, and she had no direct access to cash), she'd simply offer him anal sex and negotiate a price.

It seems that fundamentalist/evangelical sexual repression leads to all sorts of random domestic ickiness and weirdness.
Human sexuality will not be repressed, and when one subscribes to an extremist doctrine which demands that one attempt to deny or repress one's sexuality, it will nevertheless find expression in all manner of inappropriate ways.
Every time we open a newspaper lately, there's more proof.

Birth control isn't going anywhere though so I'm not too worried.

It would be as far as poor women are concerned, if we didn't have a new democratic congress waiting in the wings.

"Last week, as most Americans busily prepared for Thanksgiving, President Bush chose another extremist ideologue to a powerful post. To lead Title X, the nation's family planning program, Bush selected Eric Keroack, a fanatic who doesn't believe in birth control. Keroack is notorious for peddling bad science to spin his anti-sex education, anti-contraception hardliner views.

Keroack is currently the medical director for A Woman's Concern, a network of so-called Christian "crisis pregnancy health centers" in the greater Boston area. In addition to their strict anti-choice policies, under Keroack's supervision, AWC health centers will not even distribute, encourage the use of or offer referrals for contraceptive drugs and devices.

Advocating abstinence until marriage, Keroack and his group are even opposed to dispensing contraception to married women! Instead, their Web site describes contraception as "demeaning to women" and "adverse to human health and happiness."

Given that the vast majority of American women welcome and use contraception, the White House searched high and low to find someone with such crazy views. It's an obvious effort to placate Bush's ultra right-wing base, which is still smarting from the recent election results.

Yet the appointment, which does not require Senate approval, has unfurled a wave of condemnation across the country; even The Salt Lake Tribune is calling for the Keroack nomination to be withdrawn.

It would be an affront to women to elevate Keroack to such an important post.

"Appointing an individual who has crusaded against birth control to head the nation's family planning program makes a mockery of women's health," said Cecile Richards, president of the Planned Parenthood Federation of America. It's like giving the worst polluter the top post at the Environmental Protection Agency.

More than 30 years ago, with strong bipartisan support, Congress created Title X, the first federal program dedicated to the provision of family planning services. Since then, Title X has enabled millions of women to plan their pregnancies, prevent unintended births and receive desperately needed reproductive health care by building a network of high-quality, low-cost family planning clinics.

Last year alone, Title X enabled 126,000 women in Washington state to obtain free or subsidized contraception, cancer screening and critical health care services.

It is mind boggling to contemplate what Keroack will unleash on American women if he takes the reins of Title X. Will he divert government funds to extremist groups? Will he close down family planning clinics and replace them with "Christian" counseling centers? That's what happens when the proverbial fox is set loose in the chicken coop.

>snip<

Now Bush's appointment of Keroack threatens to bring such ideological quackery home. The last thing this country needs is a zealot who scorns contraception in charge of women's health."

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Like you, I have no concern that this (or much of anything else the government does) will effect me personally; my concern, as always, is for those with fewer resources than I.