Editorial: President’s beliefs must not infiltrate health care

We have grudgingly come to expect the appointment of
anti-abortion activists to key federal positions by the Bush
administration.

But the appointment of Eric Keroack as the Department of Health
and Human Services’ deputy assistant secretary of population
affairs will be detrimental to the lives of 5 million Americans.
His responsibility will be to allocate $283 million in federal
grant money meant to provide information about and access to birth
control, as well as fund clinics around the nation.

Keroack goes far beyond the normal right-wing attack on
reproductive rights. The pregnancy counseling center of which he is
medical director refuses to provide contraceptives even for married
couples. Its published materials spout scientific falsehoods,
claiming that having an abortion increases a woman’s risk of
breast cancer eightfold and that condom users have a 15 percent
chance of contracting HIV.

Keroack’s writings go as far as to claim that premarital
sex changes brain chemistry, preventing successful relationships in
the future. Bush should be ashamed that he is willing to appoint
crackpots such as Keroack to key public health positions to further
his own ideological agenda.