Birth Control Foe To Head Family Planning

(CBS)  Family planning advocates denounced President Bush's appointment of a contraceptive critic to be head of the federal program responsible for providing birth control and other family planning services to the poor.

Dr. Susan Orr, an associate commissioner at the Department of Health and Human Services, was named by Mr. Bush to be the Acting Deputy Assistant Secretary for Population Affairs (DASPA). She would oversee Title X, the nation's family planning program.

Orr is currently on the board of directors of Teen Choice, a non-profit groups advocating for abstinence in lieu of contraception.

Before joining the Bush administration (where she has served in the Administration on Children, Youth and Families at HHS), she was senior director for marriage and family care at the Family Research Council (a religious advocacy group founded by James Dobson of Focus on the Family), and director of the Center for Social Policy at the Reason Public Policy Institute.

Orr also served in the previous Bush and Clinton administrations as a child welfare program specialist at the National Center on Child Abuse and Neglect. She received her Masters degree and Ph.D. from Claremont Graduate School, and has worked as a high school principal and adjunct professor at American University and Regent University.

Orr has been criticized for public statements which have indicated an anti-contraceptive view in areas of education, public policy and health insurance.

In 2000, while working as a policy director at the Family Research Council, she objected to a Washington, D.C., city council bill requiring health insurers to pay for contraceptives. By not including a "conscience clause" allowing employers to withhold contraceptive coverage, Orr said the council would force employers "to make a choice between serving God and serving the D.C. government.

"It's not about choice. It's not about health care. It's about making everyone collaborators with the culture of death," she said.

In April 2001, when President Bush proposed ending contraceptive coverage for federal employees, Orr said, "We're quite pleased because fertility is not a disease. It's not a medical necessity that you have it."

In February 2001 she told the Conservative Political Action Conference that President Bush's reinstatement of the "Mexico City Policy" (which prohibits federal funds going to organizations that provide, even as only part of their services, abortion) was proof that he is pro-life "in his heart." She also advocated against administration approval of RU-486.

"The appointment of Susan Orr is a nightmare for anyone who believes in birth control and sex ed, and further evidence that the Bush administration is intent on appointing an anti-choice extremist to head Title X," said Planned Parenthood President Cecile Richards. "This is yet another example of the Bush administration putting politics ahead of women's health care."

"Dr. Orr should not be entrusted with the oversight of the federal family planning program and the health of millions of Americans," said Vicki Saporta, President and CEO of the National Abortion Federation. "For more than 35 years, the Title X program has been a hallmark of quality preventive care, enabling practitioners to provide family planning services to low-income individuals."

Rep. Henry Waxman, D-Calif., released a statement saying, "This appointment is absurd."

Family Research Council President Tony Perkins rallied to Orr's defense, saying her 2000 comments against health coverage for birth control were misconstrued and merely demonstrated her support of consumer choice of coverage. "The real question is why anyone would want to mandate that the insured buy coverage they do not want or currently need," Perkins said.

Last year, President Bush appointed another prominent abstinence advocate, Dr. Eric Keroack, to head the federal Office of Population Affairs. Dr. Keroack resigned in March after criticism of his statements, including his assertion that engaging in premarital sex suppresses the neuropeptide oxytocin, which he claims subsequently impairs one's ability to forge long-term relationships.

Orr's appointment, ironically, comes a week after a study by the World Health Organization and the Guttmacher Institute determined that in areas of the world where contraception was more widely available, such as Eastern Europe, abortion rates were lower than in other areas where birth control was not easily available.
By David Morgan

[dmhphils]

Providing the "tools" for immorality should not be the function of our government and in this case the "end" does not justify the "means". Dr. Orr introduces another alternative to the mix, abstinence. I can hear the libs now...."abstinence..that doesn''t work, we can''t abstain from anything no matter what category, eating, drinking, sleeping around....anyway, we are free to do as we please. Don''t they know we have no self-control and don''t want it either, especially for our kids." We are reaping the whirlwind and don''t even know it yet.

[dmhphils]

What are we telling our young people? That if they want to breed like rabbits and cannot abstain, its ok, we''ll get you some pills so you can act like billy goats anyway. This is a moral issue that we don''t want to acknowledge. We''re telling them its ok if you want to run around in the streets like stray dogs banging eachother....we will just give you some pills. God forbid that we should just tell them to say, "NO" and that it is not only dangerous but immoral and wrong. Lets not extinguish the last remnants of a tender conscience in our young people by telling them to ignore it and here''s some pills so you can be safe while playing with fire.

[jncc1701]

I just noticed that the blog censores the word *** - funny

I thought we were all adults. but I guess the stork is real.

What a schizophrenic approach to a fundamental part of biology.

[jncc1701]

Where are the parents?

Schools do not need to get involved in religion or *** education.

Parents need to be parents - teach your kids.

[signof4]

I have no problem with birth control and abortion.....as long as libs keep doing it, they will eventually become extinct. So have at it! Scrape away! :)

[oldpilot954]

I am sympathetic for educating teenagers. However, there are some issues that need to be addressed relating to providing medical care without parents permission. First, when teenagers (and preteens) are told that contraceptives are given free without their parents knowledge it is perceived as a societal encouragement. Secondly, apart from condoms, there is little or no disease prevention available in any of the normally offered contraceptive systems. When I was a kid, if someone had a communicable disease we isolated them from other kids. That isn''t legal nor is notification to *** partners (until after the act)in the case of HIV. Third, I also see a sense of belief here that pregnancy is the result of ignorance or lack of birth control. This is not true in an environment of generational poverty. In the inner city high school where my wife teaches, having a child by the biggest stud in the neighborhood makes the girl feel special. Providing birth control would not appreciatively change the teen birth rate in that neighborhood. Fourthly, abortion is destroying a genetically distinct human being. The question has always been whether that human being qualifies as a "person" whose interests trump the interest of the mother. We asked those same questions in the past about the person-hood of people of African descent and Native Americans while Nazis asked it about Jews. The implications of that comparison for "birth control" doesn''t leave me very comfortable.

[simonsez40]

Too bad Barbara Bush never practiced abstinence.......and thus BUSH MORON would have never been spawned....I can dream can''t I?

[jennmarie620]

I don''t understand why so many educated and so-called intelligent people in power don''t seem to understand that abstinence education does not work.

Yes, I agree that *** education and discussions about birth control and contraception options starts at home with the parents - but I know many parents who were never able to get over themselves to talk to their children. I was lucky to have a mother and father who felt confident and secure enough about themselves to be able to talk to my sister and me and answer our questions - but I was also lucky to have a health teacher in school who was open and honest in class.

In the 1940''s and 1950''s, girls mysteriously went to help sick aunts for nine months at a time because no one wanted to face the fact that teenagers HAVE ***! Sixty years later, people still have their heads buried in the sand. If people grew-up, got real, and faced reality then our teenage pregnancy rate would drop, our rising teenage sexually transmitted disease rate would stop rising and (hopefully) drop as well.

Bottom line is this: people have *** and teenagers have ***. They can do it in the backseat of a car on a country road somewhere with no protection - or they can be educated and smart and know how to protect themselves and the person they''re with.

[grammawhamma]

MyIDonCBS: Good post!! Although I am not sure 11 year olds in Maine should be given birth control pills or shots without parents permission. Condoms yes.

[grammawhamma]

"Orr is currently on the board of directors of Teen Choice, a non-profit groups advocating for abstinence in lieu of contraception."

Abstinence doesn''t work. Catholic priests even have a hard time practicing what they preach!