Wait…What?
President Bush has once again appointed a critic of birth control to head the family planning programs of the Department of Health & Human Services. Birth-Control Foe To Run Office on Family Planning – washingtonpost.com.
“Susan Orr, most recently an associate commissioner in the Administration for Children and Families, was appointed Monday to be acting deputy assistant secretary for population affairs. She will oversee $283 million in annual grants to provide low-income families and others with contraceptive services, counseling and preventive screenings.”
Orr is against making federal agencies include birth control in the prescriptions they cover even though birth control devices such as the pill are widely used to deal with many non-sexual/pregnancy situations such as PCOS, painful periods, Endometriosis and more. I guess if you work for a federal agency, you better not get one those conditions.
The last person in the job, Eric Keroack, was previously a doctor for a Christian pregnancy counseling organization and he openly opposed the use of birth control period, so I guess she is somewhat of an improvement. I’m in favor of teaching abstinence, but I’m also in favor of reality. Birth control is a necessary element of family planning and it is a health issue equal to any other that federal agencies would be required to cover.
opinions powered by SendLove.to
34 Responses to “Wait…What?”
Who cares about such a non0important job. Was this on some moveon.org mail list posting. I have seen it on every liberal blog. Ms. Orr will be gone in a little over a year and a Democrat will be in charge who will probably be so extreme the other way that the appointtee will be supporting Portland Maine’s idea to give birth control pills to 12 y/o’s.
This administration just won’t stop doing its worst until the last day in power, it seems.
If Orr has her way, poor women, without access to birth control will be railroaded into having children they can’t afftord and then castigated for needing public assistance.
Great solution, I DON’T think.
Doma- agreed. Great way to increase the number of out-of-wedlock births that trap people into poverty. Then some neanderthal tells them that single parenthood and lack of a family unit is to blame for the problems of the poor. I guess they should just be abstinent until they pull themselves up by their bootstraps enough to support a family.
They are basically creating a system that says you can’t have sex at all until you can lift yourself out of poverty. This right that everyone has is denied to you because you’re poor. How you’re going resist a natural urge that exist in every man and woman is up to you.
But I also agree that a Dem will probably put in someone that cancels all absintence teaching and gives birth control to anyone who ask with no parental consent necessary. There are reasonable doctors out there that can strike a centrist ground, but the Presidents who have the power to appoint them aren’t reasonable.
We need more moderate politicians.
I’m not so sure that Dems would make a complete 360 degree turn. There are conservative Dems, religious Dems and centrist Dems. The latter, especially, understand what the Reps don’t: that extreme positions make it impossible to govern without constant car fights.
There is an extreme element among the Dems, to be sure, but I think the leadership is more interested in holding them all together than in pandering to any one group completely.
Then, too, they are looking to hold on to power. That involves pacifying centrists in both parties as well as the Independents.
Probably not much point in mentioning the relationship between uncontrolled human reproduction and other major world problems. God forbid we (as a species) should look at that particular elephant in the living room, look that far down the road, or set (the USA) a responsible example in this area.
Non-important job? Only a family values republican could say that about the job to:
“oversee $283 million in annual grants to provide low-income families and others with contraceptive services, counseling and preventive screenings.â€
Wanna bitch more about how poor people are shying away from the GOP?
I’d say we ought to heed the title of this post…you know, wait to see what this woman will actually do in her new position rather than convict her before she ever starts?
Apparently the reason she’s being criticized as an ‘opponent of birth control’ is because she supported Bush’s decision to not make the govt employer’s insurance company pay for contraceptives.
Does anyone know what percentage of insurance companies do pay for it? I’ve never had the need to use artificial birth control myself so I have no idea if my company covers it. I know that I’ve read that many companies don’t, but I don’t know how common this is. If the practice of not covering it is typical, then I fail to see how you can go from someone supporting a decision not to have the govt insurance company pay for it to the assumption that she won’t back any payment for any contraceptives for women who can’t afford them.
Is there any contemporary quote or reference on her showing that this is her plan?
Sam,
The grants would be made even if Ms. Orr never showed up to the office. She was a political hack in a political job. And yes, 285 million is DC is budget dust and is unimportant. If the programs went away tomorrow, probably no one would notice and the teen pregnancy rate would probably not change in any measurable way.
I saw this Portland, ME news story, too. You are routinely well-informed even if the critics here give you grief.
They’re not only alien and antithetical to America and (real) Americans but downright crazy sometimes in Cyanide-Nation-Riven New England.
Hint: Bush was thoroughly loathed there even before he took office. Bush Derangement Syndrome, of course, is real.
Nobody has a “right” [sic] to these or to abortion, especially from the federal government, although that’s an illegitimate demand of the radical left.
My understanding is that over 90% of private plans cover contraceptives. In part this is because of state laws mandating such coverage.
And Ms. Orr doesn’t simply oppose government insurance covering contraceptives. The reason she opposed it was that at that time she did not work for the government but for the Family Research Council, which opposes contraception as well as abortion.
Nobody has a “right†[sic] to these or to abortion, especially from the federal government, although that’s an illegitimate demand of the radical left.
Unfortunately it’s not just the radical left that makes these demands though, it’s become pretty mainstream. And central to that is the premise that women can’t control their bodies and prevent pregnancies without artificial birth control, which is ridiculous. There’s a free method of birth control which also happens to be without side effects and just as effective as artificial birth control, if women (and their partners) would choose to use it- it’s called natural family planning.
From a purely economic perspective, though, I think since most people won’t make that choice, it’s realistic to say that it’s better to use funds to pay for contraceptives than to deal with the consequences and promote more abortions or try to fight the battle over abortions and then deal with the consequences of more poor families. I guess I’m too much the ‘compassionate conservative’ to overlook those consequences and thus funding contraceptives for poor women seems the least of all evils choice.
Sacrilege! We’re — entitled to entitlements and responsibility-free, risk-free living!
True. Prevention costs less than consequences.
You’re joking right? Now we can’t judge appointments until we see how they perform? And assume people will change their stripes once appointed?
I can’t wait till next month. “We shouldn’t assume that just because they elimintated the right to use condomes that they are anti sex”.
Was caricature the intent here? Seriously?
“the right to use condoms”?
And I’m the one who’s being accused of caricaturizing?
Davebo: I have no problem with a rational discussion of what an appointee might do, but the conversation here makes assumptions that the support of an insurance company refusing coverage for BC is the same as disallowing govt funding for contraception for the poor. Those two positions are not necessarily synonymous.
What a question: Why can’t women control theri bodies.?
It’s asked of women who are attempting to do exactly that by using birth control!
There’s riony for you.
As for the ‘right’ to birth control, I’d like to know which ‘right’ covers medications like pain killwes or psychotropic drugs?
But it’s not the way approved of by the Catholic Church and the Family Research Council and their fellows who all know what God really wants of us, doma. How dare we ignore his will, as revealed to us by the Pope and Tony Perkins?
Who is preventing whom from using birth control?
‘There’s a free method of birth control which also happens to be without side effects and just as effective as artificial birth control, if women (and their partners) would choose to use it- it’s called natural family planning. ‘
Only ones I can think of are the rhythm method which has resulted in many unhappy surprises for the participants, lol, and abstinence. Or you can take your temperature to see when you ovulate, but that’s a real mood killer, CS. Catholics and some fundies don’t believe in BC- but should they get to decide for poor women?
Kim,
Natural family planning doesn’t require temperature taking (and even prior to current methods, when temp was part of the symptomology used, it wasn’t that you had to take your temperature just prior to sex anyway, so mood has nothing to do with it). If you’re interested, learn more about it- if not, fine, but don’t comment on that which you don’t care to understand.
And I’m not advocating that anyone should ‘decide’ this for poor women. I’m simply pointing out the whole in the logic that contraception funded by the state should be a ‘right’. There are other options (and not all of them even include prolonged abstinence), so the idea that lack of funds for contraception is equivalent to forced pregnancy is false.
It would be nice if people could at least acknowledge a distinction between having a right to do something and having the right to have taxpayers fund it.
And Kim, I’ll repeat my question: who is stopping whom from using birth control? Several comments imply that there’s an attempt to legislate the religious view of contraception, and I see no evidence of that. The only thing that has come close in recent years was the morning after pill debate, and that’s because it’s more clearly an abortifacient (actually some of the standard BC methods sometimes work that way too, but unfortunately even I have to concede that fight).
I’m not even advocating that funding for contraception for poor women should be cut- I just think the argument that it’s a ‘right’ is ridiculous.
The use of birth control is being prevented when it’s not covered by insurance plans, or when it’s agrressively advocated against by those in power.
I don’t know if Medicaid covers BC, but when government policy is prohibitive, it is usually the poor whi suffer the consequences the most.
When health progarms like those for HIV/AIDS channel funds for abstinence, they are preventing a comprehensive use of BC.
This gets back to the personal liberties question, something enjoyed and aggressively guarded by the well-off for themselves, but something not available to those with financial challenges.
If you can;t pay for BC, the liberty of choosing a pregnancy free life is not available to you.
Natural birth control is the least reliable and riskiest.
For a poor woman a child wihout the means to support is a catastrophe, and the risk in using natural birth control is huge.
As long as we’re on the subject of choice, natrural birth control is something else that a woman should be able to choose, not be forced into because for her there are no alternatives available.
Pharmacies and doctors who apply their ideological convictions in order to refuse to prescribe or sell BC are in the wrong business, IMO. These are professions described as serving communities or serving people, and they make their livelihoods by claiming to be such. When they discriminate among patients (not accepting homosexual clients) or refusing to sell BC, they are not performing the dictates of their profession and should find another line of work.
Imagine a Jewish doctor refusing to treat uncircumsized men, or a Muslim doctor requiring that female patients wear veils.
In rural areas, where doctors and pharmacies are sparse, they also represent another way BC use is prevented.
I just remembered the call to protect the right of the poor to choose smoking It appears the right to smoke is much more important than the right to control if and when to have children, at least in some circles.
Not true. The liberty of choosing a particular form of birth control might not be available to you (just as those with lower incomes have all kinds of restrictions on their choices of homes, foods, etc due to their financial status). Not really fair, but not a violation of basic rights.
And honestly, I haven’t priced condoms lately, but I can’t imagine that they’re that cost prohibitive for all but the poorest of the poor, so there are still other options for artificial birth control even if the drug forms are too expensive.
Again, it’s one thing to acknowledge that people will choose to be sexually active and that it’s good to encourage them to do so responsibly- but another to mandate that taxpayers have to grant them the right to use any and all forms of birth control that are available, at taxpayer expense. One consideration is a pragmatic one based on the idea that prevention is less expensive then society paying for consequences. The other is an ideological one that says that the ability to have sex using the form of birth control that each person finds most enjoyable is something that should be financed by society for all individuals, as a basic right.
Not true either. I wish people would learn the facts if they wish to comment on this form of birth control- the newer methods have proven to be as reliable as the pill, and more reliable than certain other forms of BC.
Basically, when talk begins about what taxpayers should or should not fund, respondents fall into two groups.
Those who guard their own liberties (and tax dollars) without much regard for how society as a whole is functioning, and those who think that considering the whole of society is beneficial to each individual.
I think the former view is short sighted and, in the long run, will cost those who espouse it much more than the cost of considering the whole in the first place.
It is also misguided, because it blithely ignores what generations of other taxpayers have contributed to create the society which enables their well being and enjoyment of liberties. Suddenly, instead of
saying thank you by virtue of helping this system along, it’s become a nation of each looking after his own, and good-bye.
The latter group finds that it benefits each indivividual in the long run to encourage (by use of some tax dollars) those who contribute less to step up on the ladder and become contributors in their turn.
As it relates to BC, a woman having more children than she can afford is much less likely to become a contribuor to socierty, and her children are less likely to succeed as well.
To quibble about the cost here seems petty to me, in view of the benefit to all if families can plan theri children according to how they can afford them, either finanvially or psychologically.
The statement about taxpayers granting ‘rights’ for certain BC is just off the wall. Taxpayers grant rights? When did that start?
Natural birthcontrol is the most unreliable, for many reasons. Your personal experience may be different, but we can’t make every woman fit the same profile.
Non-important job. Perfect opportunity for the administration to show that they’re willing to compromise and say “Now, can we talk SCHIP?” Or illegal immigration. Or Iraq. Or wiretapping. Heck, bring somebody in that might even survive the next election so this particular office could be humming along regardless of who is elected. You know, something good for the nation.
And while we’re at it, I say let’s spend the entire $285 mill on educating the public on the natural birth control method that’s as reliable than the pill. Then the pill is no longer birth control and women who need it to help with hormonal issues can get it with federal money if they need to.
Doma,
I’m basing my statement about the efficacy on large scale research studies in the US, Canada, and Europe, not on my personal opinion. So where are you getting your information?
And my statement about granting rights was inelegantly worded, but the meaning relates to politicians and lobbying groups creating a right that doesn’t exist, in order to insist that taxpayers have to pay for choices-again, making it into an ideological argument about what we have to provide instead of engaging in the more honest discussion of whether we ought to provide it on practical and economic grounds.
CS,
The Family Research Council, which Bush’s appointee was an official of, not only opposes the decision in Roe v. Wade but also the decision in Griswold. They are not the only conservative religious group that does so. So yes, there are those conservatives who oppose the right of individuals to make their own decisions concerning contraceptives.
Thanks for answering my question on who you are referring to, Jim.
Now, can you show me where these people have anywhere near the power to enforce their will on this issue? There’s talk here about the last person who held Orr’s position, for example (who frankly sounds like a quack to me, but that’s an aside) being anti-birth control. Yet, shockingly, he didn’t seem to have had any effect in blocking the funding for contraception and bc education, now, did he?
There’s a free method of birth control which also happens to be without side effects and just as effective as artificial birth control, if women (and their partners) would choose to use it- it’s called natural family planning. ‘
———
My mom, Catholic, tried that and I’m the youngest of 6 kids, so…..
Angela,
Yes, and that was a generation ago, wasn’t it? The education on how to use the method effectively wasn’t so good then (and in general- though I can’t speak for your mom of course- people tended to use the method in a less effective way partly because they didn’t mind getting pregnant so much- now with more women definitely wanting to avoid pregnancies or space them more, those who choose to follow the program more seriously have a 99% efficacy rate, same as the pill).
Dear Angela,
I’ll see your mother with six kids, and I’ll raise you my two nieces and a nephew.