The Anti-Family Planning Czar - *'s newest appointment...

[Breeze54]

The Anti-Family Planning Czar

http://www.americanprogressaction.org/progressreport

OCTOBER 18, 2007

On Monday, President Bush appointed Susan Orr Acting Deputy Assistant Secretary for Population Affairs at the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS), a position that gives her oversight of federal family planning programs. Orr, who is currently directing HHS child welfare programs, was touted by the administration as "highly qualified." Before joining HHS, Orr served as senior director for marriage and family care at the conservative Family Research Council, which opposes family planning, and was an adjunct professor at Pat Robertson's Regent University. In her new role, Orr, who considers contraceptives part of the "culture of death," will be responsible for "HHS's $283 million reproductive-health program, a $30 million program that encourages abstinence among teenagers, and HHS's Office of Population Affairs, which funds birth control, pregnancy tests, counseling, and screenings for sexually transmitted diseases and HIV." Given Orr's record of opposition to comprehensive family planning services, women's rights and reproductive health advocates are speaking out strongly against her appointment. "We are appalled," said Mary Jane Gallagher, president of the National Family Planning and Reproductive Health Association. "While her resume suggests a commitment to child welfare and children, her professional credentials fail to demonstrate a commitment to comprehensive family planning services for all men and women in need." Rep. Henry Waxman (D-CA) called her appointment "absurd." Referring to her as "a virulently anti-family planning radical," Planned Parenthood has circulated a petition opposing Orr. Unfortunately, though, appointing Orr as an "acting" secretary allows the administration to sidestep the need for Senate confirmation.

A RECORD AGAINST FAMILY PLANNING: In 2001, Orr embraced a Bush administration proposal to "stop requiring all health insurance plans for federal employees" to cover a broad range of birth control. "We're quite pleased, because fertility is not a disease," said Orr. At the 2001 Conservative Political Action Conference, Orr cheered Bush's endorsement of former President Ronald Reagan's "Mexico City Policy," which required NGOs receiving federal funds to "neither perform nor actively promote abortion as a method of family planning in other nations." In a 2000 Weekly Standard article, Orr railed against requiring health insurance plans to cover contraceptives. "It's not about choice," said Orr. "It's not about health care. It's about making everyone collaborators with the culture of death." In 2000, she authored a paper titled, "Real Women Stay Married." In it, she wrote that women should "think about focusing our eyes, not upon ourselves, but upon the families we form through marriage." In 1999, Orr referred to child protection as "the most intrusive arm of social services." Her former employer, the Family Research Council, which championed her appointment yesterday, equates contraception with abortion.

BUSH'S PATTERN OF RADICAL APPOINTMENTS: Orr is the latest in a long line of Bush administration appointments promoting "a conservative political agenda" that often "runs counter to well-established science." In 2002, Bush appointed W. David Hager, an obstetrician-gynecologist considered "a leading conservative Christian voice on women's health and sexuality," to the Advisory Committee for Reproductive Health Drugs in the Food and Drug Administration (FDA). In his position, Hager "played a key role" in convincing the FDA to overrule the advisory committee's recommendations and to initially reject allowing emergency contraception, known as Plan B, from being made available over the counter. The American College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists called that decision a "dark stain on the reputation of an evidence-based agency like the FDA." In Nov. 2006, Bush appointed Eric Keroack to the same position Orr plans to fill. Before the appointment, Keroack was the medical director at A Woman's Concern, a Christian pregnancy counseling group that "supports sexual abstinence until marriage, opposes contraception and does not distribute information promoting birth control at its six centers in eastern Massachusetts." In March 2007, Keroack resigned from the position to defend himself from accusations of medical fraud.

CONSERVATIVE ASSAULT ON FAMILY PLANNING: These appointments are merely part of a larger conservative assault on family planning. In January, Sen. David Vitter (R-LA) introduced the Title X Family Planning Act, a bill to amend the Public Health Service Act, prohibiting family planning grants from being awarded to an entity that performs abortions, despite the fact that federal law already prohibits clinics from spending Title X money on abortion services. A similar restriction was attached to the House Labor, Health and Human Services, and Education spending bill, but the measure was soundly defeated. The House bill did include, however, an additional $28 million federal funding for abstinence-only education, which dictates discussing contraceptives only in terms of failure rates while often exaggerating them. The Bush administration recently launched a national ad campaign promoting abstinence-only education, despite a recent federal report concluded that such programs have had "no impacts on rates of sexual abstinence." In March, a new federal law "eliminated price breaks for many university student health centers, driving the cost of some birth-control products from less than $10 a month to $50 or more."

:banghead:

[...of J.Temperance]

1. I gave this a vote recommend, it needs to be kept on the front page

Pretty outrageous.

[MountainLaurel]

2. Outrageous but par for the course

Since Bush was first appointed president, he's been putting opponents to the purposes of a particular federal body in charge of it. Hence, Gale Norton in charge of Interior, Justice Department attorneys handling environmental crimes who the month before had been on the other side of the courtroom (and who promptly closed most of those cases for lack of evidence), opponents of public education leading Ed.

[...of J.Temperance]

3. Yep, and another example of

How far things have gone Through The Looking Glass....another example of what a topsy-turvy planet W lives on.

You know....black is white, day is night, war is peace and all that jazz.

This OP has only got two votes, surely we can do better than that *sigh*

[Breeze54]

5. Thanks.. This OP dropped like a stone in GD

I figured at least someone would read it in the Choice forum.

Bush is outrageous, that's for sure.

Look at who he wants to be in charge of voting at the FEC!!

snip-->

http://thehill.com/leading-the-news/obama-calls-on-bush-to-ax-voting-rights-chief-2007-10-19.html

Obama and Sen. Russ Feingold (D-Wis.) placed a Senate hold on Hans von Spakovsky,
whom Bush nominated to the Federal Election Committee (FEC). He had served as counsel
to the assistant attorney general for civil rights and has been accused of politicizing
the Justice Department.

That's the guy who had 90,000 removed from the voter roles in FL in 2000!
90,000 disenfranchised voters accused of being felons and ineligible to vote and they weren't! :(
He needs to get the boot too!

I've learned from ColorOfChange.org that the Senate is about to vote
on whether to confirm Hans von Spakovsky--one of the worst
perpetrators of voter suppression in recent history--to the Federal
Election Commission (FEC), an agency charged with enforcing election
law. For far too long, the Republican party has suppressed the votes
of Black people and other minorities, while the Democratic party has
stood idly by and done nothing.

I've signed on with ColorOfChange.org to tell my senators that I expect
them to reject von Spakovsky and condemn what he represents. Will you
join me?

http://www.colorofchange.org/vonspak/?id=1580-220969

Republicans have been fighting for months to get von Spakovsky
confirmed, and, last week, most Democrats in the Senate--including
some who've spoken out against him--were ready to cave to Republican
pressure and let his nomination through without a fight. Thankfully,
Senators Barack Obama and Russ Feingold stepped up and took a strong
stand against his nomination, blocking a procedural move that would
have tied von Spakovsky's nomination into a package with three other
FEC nominees, guaranteeing his appointment.1,2 Now, Obama and Feingold
need our support to convince their colleagues to take a stand against
voter suppression.

It's sad that they should need any convincing at all, given von
Spakovsky's history.

A long history of undermining our vote

During his first term, Bush installed von Spakovsky in the Justice
Department's (DOJ) voting rights section, which enforces the Voting
Rights Act. There, von Spakovsky undermined the DOJ's historic mission
of protecting minority voting rights, and actually transformed the
department into a tool to suppress the vote.

snip-->

Von Spakovsky's career in suppression didn't start at the DOJ. In
1997, he set the stage for Florida's 2000 voter purge when he wrote an
article that called for purging felons from voter rolls. Serving on
the board of the "Voter Integrity Project" (VIP) he quickly put his
ideas into action -- VIP met with the company that designed Florida's
purge to disenfranchise thousands of eligible voters, most of whom
were Black. During the recount, von Spakovsky was in Florida as a
volunteer for the Bush/Cheney campaign.

Please sign the letter and share with your friends and family!

[Kool Kitty]

4. And you gotta love the way he slid this one in.

Making her the "Acting" Deputy Secretary...doesn't have to be approved by Congress. Pretty slick. These appointments are like human "signing statements". This administration is the most repressive and regressive that I can remember.