Finally someone in the Congress points out the inanity of appointing a man who opposes birth control to run Title X, the Family Planning Program:
Several Democratic lawmakers asked the Bush administration on 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 of Representatives 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's 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.
His appointment is fresh meat for the radical Christianists in the Republican party. Too bad that this sacrifice may also include messing up the lives of poor women who depend on this program for their family planning. But this administration has never cared about the poor or about women's lives.
And the guy looks like Borat.
