Religious Right Opposes Daschle's Appointment as HHS Secretary
On Religion Dispatches, Bill Berkowitz reports on the Christian right's opposition to Sen. Tom Daschle's appointment as Secretary of the Department of Health and Human Services:
"Tom Daschle is a disaster appointment, the opposite of a national protector of health and human services," Jill Stanek, the head of BornAliveTruth, the anti-abortion group that ran advertisements against Obama during the election, told the Catholic News Agency. "Daschle ardently supports abortion ... and he disdains abstinence education. The only reason Obama appointed Daschle was to assure Obama's radical support of the abortion industry would be extended through HHS."
Tony Perkins, reports Lifenews.com, was disappointed by Senate Republicans' questioning of Daschle at his confirmation hearings:
"This hearing would have been a prime opportunity to ask Daschle whether he supports using taxpayer money to fund abortions for the first time in over three decades," Perkins told LifeNews.com.
"Two years ago, Barack Obama said that 'reproductive health care' (read: abortion) is an essential medical service," Perkins added. "He went so far as to say that private and public insurers must pay for abortions or face consequences. Does Daschle agree?"
New York Democratic Legislators to Push Sex Ed, Abortion Law Reform
Establishing a sexuality education grant program and reforming New York state's abortion laws is a priority for the now-Democratic controlled state legislature, the Poughkeepsie Journal reports. The Healthy Teens Act, which would set up grants for comprehensive, medically-accurate sexuality education, has passed the Democrat-led Assembly, for each of the past four years, has not survived a Senate vote. The abortion legislation "would make it a fundamental right for women to make medical decisions on contraception and pregnancy, something not currently in state law. It would ensure that health is a primary concern in regulating abortion, and it would remove all references to abortion from the state penal code."
Would Gupta Be an Independent Voice?
At the Boston Globe, Peter Connelly wonders whether Dr. Sanjay Gupta will be able to be a sufficiently independent voice as surgeon general. Connelly recalls bold, independent action on women's health issues by Ronald Reagan's surgeon general, C. Everett Koop:
And when Reagan, who opposed abortion rights, insisted that Koop deliver a report on the possible health ramifications of abortion on women, many of Koop's critics feared that he would draw conclusions helpful to abortion-rights opponents. Instead, he offered a scientific conclusion that there was no conclusively reliable follow-up research on women who'd had abortions, and declined to declare that abortions are a potential danger to women's health.
Smart Spending on Family Planning
In a letter to the editor in the Orlando Sentinel, Jenna Cawley of Planned Parenthood of Greater Orlando argued that cutting funding for family planning centers would be "penny-wise but pound-foolish" and that "ineffective programs" like Title V abstinence-only programs and crisis pregnancy centers should be defunded first. "While health-care agencies and programs are facing cuts, so-called "crisis pregnancy centers" are being fully funded at $2 million. These centers are not legitimate medical facilities...As our elected officials make hard decisions about our budget, one decision shouldn't be hard -- eliminate funding for ineffective abstinence-only programs and crisis pregnancy centers."
The Philadelphia Daily News agrees: in an editorial, the newspaper suggests that President-Elect Obama's chief performance officer, Nancy Killefer, needn't look farther than abstinence-only programs to find an ineffective, wasteful program that doesn't need government funding. Says the Daily News, "Only the people who collect a paycheck from them say that they work. Yet another scientific study, released last month, says the programs don't lead to more sexual abstinence - and actually may lead to more unsafe sex, which means more unwanted pregnancies and more sexually-transmitted diseases. And we surely don't need that."
