Bush choice for family-planning post criticized
SuzannePjam
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Bush choice for family-planning post criticized
Eric Keroack held post at Christian pregnancy-counseling center
By Christopher Lee
WASHINGTON - The Bush administration has appointed a new chief of family-planning programs at the Department of Health and Human Services who worked at a Christian pregnancy-counseling organization that regards the distribution of contraceptives as "demeaning to women."
Eric Keroack, medical director for A Woman's Concern, a nonprofit group based in Dorchester, Mass., will become deputy assistant secretary for population affairs in the next two weeks, department spokeswoman Christina Pearson said yesterday.
Keroack, an obstetrician-gynecologist, will advise Secretary Mike Leavitt on matters such as reproductive health and adolescent pregnancy. He will oversee $283 million in annual family-planning grants that, according to HHS, are "designed to provide access to contraceptive supplies and information to all who want and need them with priority given to low-income persons."
The appointment, which does not require Senate confirmation, was the latest provocative personnel move by the White House since Democrats won control of Congress in this month's midterm elections. President Bush last week pushed the Senate to confirm John R. Bolton as ambassador to the United Nations and this week renominated six candidates for appellate court judgeships who have previously been blocked by lawmakers. Democrats said the moves belie Bush's post-election promises of bipartisanship.
The Keroack appointment angered many family-planning advocates, who noted that A Woman's Concern supports sexual abstinence until marriage, opposes contraception and does not distribute information promoting birth control at its six centers in eastern Massachusetts.
"A Woman's Concern is persuaded that the crass commercialization and distribution of birth control is demeaning to women, degrading of human sexuality and adverse to human health and happiness," the group's Web site says.
Keroack was traveling and could not be reached for comment. John O. Agwunobi, assistant secretary for health, said Keroack "is highly qualified and a well-respected physician . . . working primarily with women and girls in crisis."
Mark Conrad, president of A Woman's Concern, said Keroack would be able to make the transition to leading a federal program in which provision of birth control is an integral part. "I don't think it's going to be an issue for him," he said.
The group helps women in unplanned pregnancies but discourages abortions, Conrad said. He said the decision is the woman's but "we do want to give her the opportunity to have all the information and the support necessary to choose life."
Marilyn Keefe, interim president of the National Family Planning and Reproductive Health Association, which represents 4,000 family-planning clinics, said Keroack's work "seems to really be geared toward furthering anti-choice, anti-contraception policies." She added that despite the congressional election results, the appointment "goes to show you the importance of controlling the White House and how important federal agencies are in the delivery of health services."
Thousands of clinics
The federal family-planning program, created in 1970, supports a network of 4,600 family-planning clinics that provide information and counseling to 5 million people each year. Services include patient education and counseling, breast and pelvic exams, pregnancy diagnosis and counseling, and screenings for cervical cancer, sexually transmitted diseases and HIV.
Cecile Richards, president of the Planned Parenthood Federation of America, called Keroack's appointment "striking proof that the Bush administration remains dramatically out of step with the nation's priorities."
Taken together, Keroack's appointment, the Bolton push and the judicial renominations suggest that although Bush may work for consensus with Democrats on selected issues, he does not plan to avoid decisions simply because lawmakers will disagree, and he may in fact seek fights in some instances when he feels they may be useful politically.
Confirmation of Bolton and the judicial nominees are popular causes with Bush's conservative base, and a family-planning chief from an organization that opposes contraceptives may appeal to disaffected social conservatives.
White House spokeswoman Dana M. Perino cautioned against reading a larger pattern into the recent moves, saying, "You have to look at these things in isolation."
She added: "The president has said we will look to reach common ground where we can find it. However, he's not going to compromise on his principles."
Staff writer Peter Baker contributed to this report.
© 2006 The Washington Post Company
Eric Keroack held post at Christian pregnancy-counseling center
By Christopher Lee
WASHINGTON - The Bush administration has appointed a new chief of family-planning programs at the Department of Health and Human Services who worked at a Christian pregnancy-counseling organization that regards the distribution of contraceptives as "demeaning to women."
Eric Keroack, medical director for A Woman's Concern, a nonprofit group based in Dorchester, Mass., will become deputy assistant secretary for population affairs in the next two weeks, department spokeswoman Christina Pearson said yesterday.
Keroack, an obstetrician-gynecologist, will advise Secretary Mike Leavitt on matters such as reproductive health and adolescent pregnancy. He will oversee $283 million in annual family-planning grants that, according to HHS, are "designed to provide access to contraceptive supplies and information to all who want and need them with priority given to low-income persons."
The appointment, which does not require Senate confirmation, was the latest provocative personnel move by the White House since Democrats won control of Congress in this month's midterm elections. President Bush last week pushed the Senate to confirm John R. Bolton as ambassador to the United Nations and this week renominated six candidates for appellate court judgeships who have previously been blocked by lawmakers. Democrats said the moves belie Bush's post-election promises of bipartisanship.
The Keroack appointment angered many family-planning advocates, who noted that A Woman's Concern supports sexual abstinence until marriage, opposes contraception and does not distribute information promoting birth control at its six centers in eastern Massachusetts.
"A Woman's Concern is persuaded that the crass commercialization and distribution of birth control is demeaning to women, degrading of human sexuality and adverse to human health and happiness," the group's Web site says.
Keroack was traveling and could not be reached for comment. John O. Agwunobi, assistant secretary for health, said Keroack "is highly qualified and a well-respected physician . . . working primarily with women and girls in crisis."
Mark Conrad, president of A Woman's Concern, said Keroack would be able to make the transition to leading a federal program in which provision of birth control is an integral part. "I don't think it's going to be an issue for him," he said.
The group helps women in unplanned pregnancies but discourages abortions, Conrad said. He said the decision is the woman's but "we do want to give her the opportunity to have all the information and the support necessary to choose life."
Marilyn Keefe, interim president of the National Family Planning and Reproductive Health Association, which represents 4,000 family-planning clinics, said Keroack's work "seems to really be geared toward furthering anti-choice, anti-contraception policies." She added that despite the congressional election results, the appointment "goes to show you the importance of controlling the White House and how important federal agencies are in the delivery of health services."
Thousands of clinics
The federal family-planning program, created in 1970, supports a network of 4,600 family-planning clinics that provide information and counseling to 5 million people each year. Services include patient education and counseling, breast and pelvic exams, pregnancy diagnosis and counseling, and screenings for cervical cancer, sexually transmitted diseases and HIV.
Cecile Richards, president of the Planned Parenthood Federation of America, called Keroack's appointment "striking proof that the Bush administration remains dramatically out of step with the nation's priorities."
Taken together, Keroack's appointment, the Bolton push and the judicial renominations suggest that although Bush may work for consensus with Democrats on selected issues, he does not plan to avoid decisions simply because lawmakers will disagree, and he may in fact seek fights in some instances when he feels they may be useful politically.
Confirmation of Bolton and the judicial nominees are popular causes with Bush's conservative base, and a family-planning chief from an organization that opposes contraceptives may appeal to disaffected social conservatives.
White House spokeswoman Dana M. Perino cautioned against reading a larger pattern into the recent moves, saying, "You have to look at these things in isolation."
She added: "The president has said we will look to reach common ground where we can find it. However, he's not going to compromise on his principles."
Staff writer Peter Baker contributed to this report.
© 2006 The Washington Post Company
"Where there is sacrifice there is someone collecting the sacrificial offerings."-- Ayn Rand
"Some of my friends sit around every evening and they worry about the times ahead,
But everybody else is overwhelmed by indifference and the promise of an early bed..."-- Elvis Costello
"Some of my friends sit around every evening and they worry about the times ahead,
But everybody else is overwhelmed by indifference and the promise of an early bed..."-- Elvis Costello
Post edited by Unknown User on
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Comments
so they can spend more of our money
Yep -- $288,000,000 of it in 2005.
http://www.alternet.org/rights/44411/
if you're anti-department of health and human services, then i'd understand. but if there's to be a dhhs, then there should be this position. women's health care is very important, and we're big in numbers.
on a sidenote: just wait until i go to grad school and fix all of this!
cross the river to the eastside
Why is offering in quotes?
absolutely. and i've spoken with some women who have been locked in a room (!), forced to watch their graphic, inaccurate, propaganda.
cross the river to the eastside
I am anti-department of health and human services.
Women's health care is very important. I'm not sure how "importance" equates to a job titled "deputy assistant secretary for population affairs" or an orgnization that spends a quarter-billion dollars a year.
How?
the person in that position will be developing and implementing programs for women to get health care education and access, particularly low-income women. so i think that's an important position.
and, that's what i hope to do in the future, not necessarily for dhhs.
cross the river to the eastside
I'm not sure, then, why this appointment would bother you. I don't see any indication here that women will not receive "health care education" or "access". Furthermore, it still seems that "low-income women" will be the primary clientele.
What is "that"?
So you have a "strong feeling" that women are coerced into getting ultrasounds specifically to get them to want to keep a child?
well if you go back and read about his work with a woman's concern, maybe you'll get some indication. also think about bush's past appointments with women's health issues and what the implications of those were. i think it's highly unlikely this guy's past work won't affect the new work.
cross the river to the eastside
I did read it. Again, I don't see any indication here that women will not receive "health care education" or "access". Furthermore, it still seems that "low-income women" will be the primary clientele.
Hello, ffg......
In a young, healthy woman, an ultrasound early in the pregnancy is not necessarily indicated. When I was pregnant, I had one ultrasound at 5 months. If the woman is unclear when she got pregnant, a simple blood test (quantitative B-HCG), can determine how far along she is. Some in the health profession will even say that gratuitous ultrasounds might not be good for the fetus. So, what do you suppose the reason is for the ultrasound so early in the pregnancy? Is it reasonable to assume that the ultrasound in these cases are being used as an emotional tool opposed to a medical one?
but the illusion of knowledge.
~Daniel Boorstin
Only a life lived for others is worth living.
~Albert Einstein
Hey baraka...always nice to see you.
I'm not arguing that such a procedure wouldn't be used as an "emotional tool". I'm well aware that ultrasounds potentially pose unnecessary risks and I'm not supporting their use in such a manner. However, nothing stops people from using ultrasounds in all sorts of potentially inappropriate ways.
What I'm trying to understand here is whether the arguments being made against this guy aren't as "emotional" as what he's doing.
Given that the position does exist, i have this to say:
Of course he is there to prevent abortions. He's not the choice I would have made. But I have said it before (Supreme Court, Ashcroft, etc., etc.)--to the victor go the spoils. People know Bush is anti-choice and they voted for him. They knew they would get this. He is the president. He gets to make these choices.
The hard core pro-choice people (I am a "softer" pro-choice) need to wake up--most Americans are NOT pro-choice.
I agree, but it is still Bush's choice and frankly, reflective of what the American people would want. Or at least what they would accept in return for all the other reasons they voted for him. It's his perogitive to do this.
what makes you think that? polls say otherwise.
The Polls Speak: Americans Support Abortion
by Celinda Lake
Despite what anti-abortion activists and politicians would have you believe, the majority of Americans continue to support a woman’s right to a legal abortion — as they have done consistently for the past 15 years. Polls show that those who strive to abolish a woman’s right to the full range of family-planning services are fundamentally out of step with American opinion. Here’s a sampling:
Voters self-identify as “pro-choice” over “pro-life” by a double-digit margin.
In 2004, 52 percent of voters identified themselves as pro-choice, 41 percent pro-life, according to Gallup Poll trend data. Although the margins have fluctuated slightly, the pro-choice position has remained dominant since 1996, and in the past four years there has been very little change in public opinion.
Americans strongly wish to keep abortion legal.
A recent ABC News/Washington Post poll found that 56 percent of respondents nationwide favored keeping abortion legal in all or most cases. The survey of 1,082 adults, conducted in April 2005, showed that only 14 percent of those surveyed wanted to keep abortion illegal in all cases, with another 27 percent wanting most cases to be illegal.
Voters don’t want the government and politicians involved in their choice about abortion. In a recent survey by The Mellman Group, 62 percent of respondents felt the government should not interfere with a woman’s access to abortion. Only 33 percent believe the government should restrict access.
Bush should nominate Supreme Court justices who will uphold Roe v. Wade.
Nearly 60 percent of Americans say that, if presented with an opportunity to appoint one or more new justices to the Supreme Court, President Bush should pick individuals who would uphold Roe.
The Associated Press/Ipsos-Public Affairs Poll, which surveyed a national sample of 1,000 adults last November, found that only three in 10 respondents (31 percent) favored nominating justices who would overturn Roe.
Voters don’t want the Senate to rubber-stamp judicial nominees.
Three-quarters of the respondents in a poll of 1,000 likely voters said that the Senate should examine each of the president’s nominees carefully and make its own independent judgment. Only 24 percent thought that the Senate should just confirm whomever Bush puts forward.
Voters avidly support comprehensive sex education and emergency contraception and don’t support pharmacists refusing to fill birth-control prescriptions.
When the debate expands beyond abortion, voters show overwhelming support for a number of issues impacting women’s reproductive rights, family planning and prevention of unintended pregnancies. Voters recently surveyed by Planned Parenthood Federation of America overwhelmingly (78 percent) favor requirements that schools teach sex education, and 79 percent favor access to emergency contraception (EC) for rape and incest victims.
A large majority (65 percent) favors EC for all women, and 66 percent said that health-insurance policies should cover contraceptives. Respondents further showed strong support (67 percent) for a law making it clear that contraception does not constitute abortion and should not be regulated by abortion legislation. Furthermore, in the recent debate over pharmacists refusing to fill prescriptions, only 40 percent of those surveyed agreed that pharmacists should be allowed to do so.
The support for abortion and family-planning rights is rooted in core values of free choice, personal responsibility and personal decision-making.
Politicians love to talk about values these days, so we can remind them that support for reproductive choice is rooted in strong ones. According to the Planned Parenthood polling, nearly nine in 10 voters (88 percent) agree that men and women should have the right to the information and means to decide freely and responsibly about the number and spacing of their children.
The abortion issue did not determine the outcome of the 2004 presidential election — but perhaps it could in a future contest.
In the months since November 2004, a host of commentators insisted that abortion had a negative impact on the election; some even blamed Democratic candidate John Kerry’s loss on his support for abortion rights.
However, data collected by Lake Snell Perry & Associates for the nonpartisan network Votes for Women 2004 shows that the election issues about which voters most cared were the economy (23 percent), national security and terrorism (19 percent), and the war in Iraq (13 percent).
When voters were asked what made them decide their presidential choice, only 2 percent volunteered the issue of abortion. Among Kerry voters, less than 1 percent offered this as an issue. Among Bush voters, only 2 percent said abortion determined their vote for president.
But actual votes for the two presidential candidates divided clearly — and evenly — along the line of abortion-rights ideology: Voters who felt abortion should be “always legal” voted 73 percent for Kerry, while self-defined pro-lifers voters voted 77 percent for George W. Bush.
Perhaps if choice had played a more visible role in the presidential campaign, John Kerry would have fared better. In fact, choice may have played a role in generating a record number of unmarried-women voters, who surged in turnout — 7.5 million more than in 2000 — with 62 percent of them casting their votes for Kerry.
Looking to the future of the electorate, 60 percent of female voters under the age of 45 were pro-choice, according to exit polling, compared to 55 percent of all 2004 voters. Effectively mobilized, perhaps they’ll demand—and vote for—only the candidates who dedicate themselves to preserving women’s reproductive rights.
http://www.msmagazine.com/summer2005/polls.asp
cross the river to the eastside
Agreed
Sure they are. Folks that believe abstinence alone is not the absolute answer to the problem of teenage pregnancy & STDs are going to have a problem with this. The same case could be made for the other side, if there was someone in charge with a more liberal approach to the matter. There is no way around 'emotions' with this topic. However, it is also easy to note the blatant bias of particular decisions, on both sides of the issue. You asked the other poster about 'coercion' to have an ultrasound. I'm not sure coercion is the correct word, but there is definitely an agenda in recommending such a procedure when not medically indicated, don't you think?
but the illusion of knowledge.
~Daniel Boorstin
Only a life lived for others is worth living.
~Albert Einstein
when it hits you, you feel to pain.
So brutalize me with music.”
~ Bob Marley
Might as well stop the program now...it will end up being strictly some kind of place that women will get demeaned and get no help.
His other new appointment for that guy to take Rummy's place is f'cked too. The only qualifications is that he has leader and mangerial skills...reminds of what Bownie had for FEMA!!!
I hate Bush. I wish the Iraqis would come get him and try him for war crimes in their nation and then house him with Saddam and hang them both together. Hes crazy!!!
To put a guy in charge of the very program that provides birth control, when the guy is anti-birth control is just ignorant and wrong. Birth control doesn't just mean abortion!!!!!
Sure.
Of course there's an agenda! But the opposition is just as agenda driven, yet insists on hiding behind words like "medical" and "education" and "access". The problem there is that an ultrasound, even when done for an agenda, can expose medical issues, can educate, and provides access. Furthermore, the accusation of "coersion" really bugs me because not providing such ultrasounds is also a form a coersion in this context. This is all nit-picking really, but what I'm trying to get down to is this basic question:
If you can form public policy around your emotional agenda, why can't someone else?
when it hits you, you feel to pain.
So brutalize me with music.”
~ Bob Marley
I agree with this. It's also demeaning to men. The crass commercialization of any product of a very private nature is demeaning in my opinion.
when it hits you, you feel to pain.
So brutalize me with music.”
~ Bob Marley