Bush Appoints Anti-Choice Doctor as Family Planning Chief
Milhouse VanHouten
Posts: 755
Dems oppose birth-control foe as family-planning chief
POSTED: 7:33 p.m. EST, November 20, 2006
WASHINGTON (Reuters) -- Several Democratic lawmakers asked the Bush administration Monday to replace its new family-planning chief because he has worked for a health provider that opposes the use of birth control.
Dr. Eric Keroack's record as an opponent of birth control and abortion makes him a poor choice to oversee a $280 million reproductive-health program, seven House Democrats said in a letter to Health and Human Services Secretary Mike Leavitt.
"We are concerned that Dr. Keroack has promoted policies -- including the refusal to distribute contraception even to married women -- that directly conflict with the mission of the federal program," the letter said.
Keroack last week was named head of HHS' Office of Population Affairs, which funds birth control, pregnancy tests, breast-cancer screening and other health services for 5 million poor people annually. HHS estimates that the program helps to prevent 1.3 million unwanted pregnancies each year.
The office also oversees a $30 million program that encourages sexual abstinence among teens.
An HHS spokeswoman said Keroack is a skilled doctor and a nationally recognized expert on preventing teen pregnancy.
"We have confidence that he'll perform his duties effectively and in accordance with the law," HHS spokeswoman Christina Pearson said by e-mail.
Keroack previously served as medical director for A Woman's Concern, a chain of Boston-area pregnancy clinics that advise against the use of contraception and advocate abstinence as a way to avoid pregnancy and sexually transmitted diseases.
Keroack has spoken at abstinence conferences across the country and has written that people who have more than one sex partner have a diminished neurological capacity to experience loving relationships.
His appointment does not need to be approved by the Senate, but Democrats will have the power to force him to testify when they control Congress next year.
One of those who signed the letter, California Rep. Henry Waxman, will be chairman of the House Government Reform Committee, while New York Rep. Louise Slaughter is expected to chair the Rules Committee. Others sit on committees that oversee HHS and control its budget.
"Less than two weeks ago the American public made it clear that they want a middle-ground approach to our nation's most pressing problems," New York Democratic Rep. Nita Lowey said. "Unfortunately, this appointment says loudly and clearly that the president simply did not get that message."
http://www.cnn.com/2006/POLITICS/11/20/bush.birth.control.reut/index.html
POSTED: 7:33 p.m. EST, November 20, 2006
WASHINGTON (Reuters) -- Several Democratic lawmakers asked the Bush administration Monday to replace its new family-planning chief because he has worked for a health provider that opposes the use of birth control.
Dr. Eric Keroack's record as an opponent of birth control and abortion makes him a poor choice to oversee a $280 million reproductive-health program, seven House Democrats said in a letter to Health and Human Services Secretary Mike Leavitt.
"We are concerned that Dr. Keroack has promoted policies -- including the refusal to distribute contraception even to married women -- that directly conflict with the mission of the federal program," the letter said.
Keroack last week was named head of HHS' Office of Population Affairs, which funds birth control, pregnancy tests, breast-cancer screening and other health services for 5 million poor people annually. HHS estimates that the program helps to prevent 1.3 million unwanted pregnancies each year.
The office also oversees a $30 million program that encourages sexual abstinence among teens.
An HHS spokeswoman said Keroack is a skilled doctor and a nationally recognized expert on preventing teen pregnancy.
"We have confidence that he'll perform his duties effectively and in accordance with the law," HHS spokeswoman Christina Pearson said by e-mail.
Keroack previously served as medical director for A Woman's Concern, a chain of Boston-area pregnancy clinics that advise against the use of contraception and advocate abstinence as a way to avoid pregnancy and sexually transmitted diseases.
Keroack has spoken at abstinence conferences across the country and has written that people who have more than one sex partner have a diminished neurological capacity to experience loving relationships.
His appointment does not need to be approved by the Senate, but Democrats will have the power to force him to testify when they control Congress next year.
One of those who signed the letter, California Rep. Henry Waxman, will be chairman of the House Government Reform Committee, while New York Rep. Louise Slaughter is expected to chair the Rules Committee. Others sit on committees that oversee HHS and control its budget.
"Less than two weeks ago the American public made it clear that they want a middle-ground approach to our nation's most pressing problems," New York Democratic Rep. Nita Lowey said. "Unfortunately, this appointment says loudly and clearly that the president simply did not get that message."
http://www.cnn.com/2006/POLITICS/11/20/bush.birth.control.reut/index.html
"Of course it hurts. You're getting fucked by an elephant."
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more gems:
http://forums.pearljam.com/showthread.php?t=223424
cross the river to the eastside
They love you so badly for sharing their sorrow, so pick up that guitar and go break a heart - Kris Kristofferson
yes, and let us never forget that pregnancy and childbirth are god's greatest gift to the female population. if you don't have at least 2 children by the time you are 35, you have let god down. unless you're single, that is. if you're single and have more than zero children, you are an awful, awful person trying to destroy the very fabric of western civilization.
Abstinence is all well and good, but it's not the issue here. If the USA were a country ruled by Catholicism (or most religions, for that matter), then the President would have every right to appoint an 'Abstinence Chief'. However, the US has a high teenage pregnancy level, and western culture whether dominated by religion or not doesn't do a lot to dissuade young (and not so young) people to have sex. If this man thinks that he can encourage the horny to abstain from sexual activity he's an idiot. Contraception is not evil. It is a part of life. Promoting religious-based or personal arguments as such will achieve nothing. Or, if he is comfortable with it, which I assume he is not, a high abortion rate.
Noam Chomsky & Gilbert Achcar interviewed by Stephen Shalom
Mail & Guardian Online, November 3, 2006
Gilbert Achcar: When Arab nationalism, Nasserism and similar trends began to crumble in the 1970s, most governments used Islamic fundamentalism as a tool to counter remnants of the left or of secular nationalism.
A striking illustration of the phenomenon is Egyptian president Anwar al-Sadat. He fostered Islamic fundamentalism to counter remnants of Nasserism after he took over in 1970 and ended up being assassinated by Islamic fundamentalists in 1981.
Today in the Middle East the same genie is out of the bottle and out of control. The repression of progressive or secular ideologies, aggravated by the collapse of the Soviet Union, has left the ground open to the only ideo- logical channel available for anti-Western protest -- Islamic fundamentalism.
Noam Chomsky: Without drawing the analogy too closely, I think there is something similar in the US fundamentalist situation.
It should be added, however, that the dynamic may be universal. [Whether] Christian or Jewish or Islamic or Hindu, the fundamentalist religious impulse can be turned to serve political agendas.
In the United States, what we call fundamentalism has very deep roots, from the early colonists. There’s always been an extreme, ultra*religious element, more or less fundamentalist, with several revivals.
In the past 25 years, fundamentalism has been turned for the first time into a major political force. It’s a conscious effort, I think, to try to undermine progressive social policies. Not radical policies but rather the mild social democratic policies of the preceding period are under serious attack.
The fundamentalists were mobilised into a political force for the first time to provide a base for this reaction, and -- to the extent that the political system functions, which is not much -- to shift the focus of many voters from the issues that really affect their interests (such as health, education, economic issues, wages) to religious crusades to block the teaching of evolution, gay rights and abortion rights.
These are all issues about which CEOs, for example, just don’t care very much. They care a lot about the other issues. And if you can shift the focus of debate and attention and presidential politics to questions quite marginal for the wealthy -- questions of, say, gay rights -- that’s wonderful for people who want to destroy the labour unions, or to construct a social/political system for the benefit of the ultra-rich, while everyone else barely survives.
This fundamentalist mobilisation has occurred during a unique period of American economic history where, for about 25 years, real wages have either stagnated or declined for the majority. Real median family incomes are rising far more slowly than productivity and economic growth, and for some sectors, declining. There were things like the Great Depression, but never 25 years of stagnation through a period with no serious economic disruptions.
Working hours have been going way up, social benefits way down, and indebtedness is growing enormously. These are real social and economic crises. One way for the powerful to manage these crises is by mobilising the fundamentalist sectors and turning them into an active political force.
Thus the discourse and the focus shift to issues of great concern to the fundamentalists, but of only marginal concern to the people who own and run the society.
In fact, you could take a look at the attitudes of CEOs: they’re what are called liberal. They’re not very different from college professors. And if the population can become obsessed with “evolution theory” and gay rights, that’s fine, so long as the business world is running the social and economic policies with little interference.
After the last election, the business press described the “euphoria” in corporate boardrooms, and it wasn’t because they were against gay marriage. Some were, some weren’t; many of them or their children are gay anyway -- no, what they knew is that it was a free run for business.
And if you can manage that, that’s an achievement; it’s one of the ways the population can be kept under control -- plus inducing fear, which is a standard device.
My impression is that a real shift came with the administration of Jimmy Carter. Pre-Carter, nobody really much cared whether the president was religious.
But Carter, who was probably sincere, somehow taught party managers that if you put on a pious face, you appeal to a big voting bloc. Since Carter, every presidential candidate has pretended to religious experience.
In any case, it became possible to mobilise religious sentiment, which had always been there, and to turn it into a major political force, into the focus of political discourse, displacing social and economic issues.
Take right now. For most of the population, the major issues are things like exploding healthcare costs. But neither political party wants to deal with that; they’re too much in the pocket of the insurance companies and the financial institutions and so on. So instead they have battles about evolution theory and intelligent design, and they’ll argue about that. Meanwhile, the rich go on their way, running the country.
Stephen Shalom: Perhaps we should clarify terms here. There are some very traditional, religious Muslims who say that “fundamentalism” is an attitude toward religion and that it doesn’t imply that you want to impose it on somebody else. So, according to this view, one shouldn’t use “fundamentalism” as a politically derogatory term.
Chomsky: I think religious Muslims would make that distinction, just as when some Jewish fundamentalists were stopped just before they blew up a mosque, religious Jews dissociated themselves from them. That makes sense.
We’re talking here about the rise and use of fundamentalism as a general phenomenon, across cultures. The correlation between social and economic programmes that cause hardships for most of the population, and the ascendancy of fundamentalism as a core of political debate, is too close to be disregarded.
...are those who've helped us.
Right 'round the corner could be bigger than ourselves.
I would like to have someone who is neutral on the issue. This guy though, I don't even know what to say about him. Against contraceptions? Even in married women? That's just ignorant and incredibly out of touch.
Exactly what I was thinking.
"Hey, if God didn’t want me to wear it so much, he wouldn’t have made them rock so hard."
i'd say that if it is their job to create and implement programs for the distribution of birth control, that having someone pro-choice (supportive of a woman's reproductive choices and options) is a good idea.
why would they put someone in that position who doesn't believe in it?
cross the river to the eastside
That's the key, "out of touch". An abstinence-based blitz on family planning is not going to get through to kids. 50 years ago when there were stronger family values alive, perhaps. Today, peer pressure often outweighs parental pressure with teenagers. Trying to preach abstinence is just a big waste of tax payer money. This is one issue where I want to have a liberal in charge..not to necessarily "promote abortion" but someone who is in touch with the reality of the situation from a secularist vantage point.
Politics.
I think Georgy does think he's making the world better...more godly...I also think all those that prop him up are laughing their arsch's off using his and all those "followers" for their gains.
As you I get just infuriated at the whole abstinence only strategy...how sexist...how inhumane...really sad fckers.
In my opinion, abstinence is still a good thing and should at least be attempted or a part of the overall strategy.
...are those who've helped us.
Right 'round the corner could be bigger than ourselves.
Abstinence only works if you are too ugly to get laid.
Hail, Hail!!!
completely...an overall strategy is right....abstinance is even the prefered to me for teenagers..it just can not be the only strategy....in Texas, thanks to Georgy..its the only strategy. Thats the sad part...and as far as adults are concerned....waste of time to talk about abstinance..if two adults are in the position to have consentual sex..they need to do it...good for the soul. (0;
just mean...but bet a good percentage of people that are for abstinence only don't see themselves as sexually attractive and or haven't yet had a good sexual experience.
in comprehensive sex education, abstinence is part of the overall strategy.
cross the river to the eastside
It was meant to be a joke... I guess it don't fly in this room.
Hail, Hail!!!
Ask kids about abstinance. You'll probabaly get that it is vaginal intercourse that the adults don't want us to do.
Blow jobs, hand jobs, anal sex, finger banging and everything else is okay.
...
The Adults need to remember what it was like to be kids... in order to communicate with them. I believe that most adults have no idea what's going on with their kids.
Hail, Hail!!!
The guy is entitled to believe what he wants in that aspect as long as it doesn't affect his decisions that affect the American public. Now, if that's possible is where it becomes problematic.
Truly
Peace Love & Pearl Jam forever!!
it was a joke...and I chuckled.....just it does have some truth to it....
People are always saying that they'll keep their personal opinions separate from their professional duties. But they rarely do
Did you see Family Guy?
They did it in the ear to stay 'virgins'....classic.
Yeah, all people for abstinence are ugly people. Douchebag. Maybe a majority of those for it are for it to stop against unwanted pregnancies or disease. Condoms are nowhere fullproof. I know it was a joke, but the fact that you think it has some truth makes you just a stupid as the guy Bush nominated.
Was it the episode where they had 15 "flashbacks" that had nothing to do with the plotline? Wait, that is every episode.
Yep, some people just don't get it.
Missed that one.
But, I do know that gals will continue to proclaim their virginity, even though they'll blow their boyfriends and butt fuck them. Gals... it called oral SEX and anal SEX for a reason.
The adults teaching this stuff to them are out of it.
Hail, Hail!!!
I did get it for the first 3 seasons. But the South Park episodes about Family Guy kinda took the fun out of it.