President Bush announced today his choice to head the Federal Government’s Family Planning Program:  Susan Orr. Orr, whom Bush called “very qualified” turns out to be not at all qualified for this job. Here’s why:  she vehemently opposes contraception. That’s right. The woman who will be helping shape federal policy about access to contraception doesn’t think contraception is a good idea. She thinks the Global Gag Rule is fine and dandy and that birth control is “not a medical necessity.” She even authored a charming document called “Real Women Stay Married.” And she thinks that Plan B is a “grave threat to women’s health.” Jill says it sounds like a headline from the Onion. Only it’s real life. It’s headspinning.

But it’s not surprising. Why not? Bush’s previous choice for this post was Dr. Eric Keroack, the medical director of A Woman’s Concern (a “crisis pregnancy center”), who has been intimately involved with Leslee Unruh’s Abstinence Clearinghouse and who pushes the scientifically dubious claim that women (note: only women) become unable to form loving relationships if they have sex extra- or pre-maritally because of supposed changes in brain chemistry. Again - no science here.

I’ll chalk this one up to another embarrassingly bad Bush appointee. And the Bush administration knows it. Why else would they announce her appointment on the same day as the Mukasey hearings?

This entry was posted on Wednesday, October 17th, 2007 at 11:05 pm and is filed under politics, Bad Bush, abortion. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.