Friday, November 17, 2006

Bush Puts Anti-Contraception Nut in Charge of Family Planning at HHS

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."

...

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 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. MSNBC, via Aetiology.


Tara C. Smith of Aetiology sums it up nicely:
The Republican War on Science strikes again.

4 comments:

Mark said...

I'm a little unclear how to connect any policy decision concerning contraceptives with a "war on science".

Maybe it's just sloppy categorization.

Anonymous said...

Yay!

Anonymous said...

I guess there are some good things about Bush.

Dromedary Hump said...

Re: "I'm a little unclear how to connect any policy decision concerning contraceptives with a "war on science".


I'm going to venture a guess... Christian, right? yeah..i thought so. Systems of belief based on "faith" don't require much thought. Let me help you:

The ability to manage the human reproductive system to avert pregnancy while engaging in sex is SCIENTIFICALLY DERIVED. It wasn't "revealed" by any supernatural ghostie. Just as science has extended our life span with no help from ski-pixies, so has it given man/ woman the ability to ascertain when and if
a child is to be conceived.

To ignore this achievment and impede its use based on stunted religious mentality is to wage war on scientific advancement.

To deny the right wing extremist war on science, whether rejection of evolutionary evidence, opposition to stem cell research,or the ability to control reproduction while expressing ones love and sexuality, is simply indicative of the 12th century theist mind being in conflict / at war with 21st century achievement and benefits to mankind.

Hope that clarifys things for you. Probably not.