Trump Just Picked a Contraception Skeptic to Head Federal Family Planning Efforts
Source: Mother Jones
"The prospect that contraception would always prevent the conception of a child is preposterous."
HANNAH LEVINTOVA MAY 1, 2017 1:35 PM
After appointing the former president of a powerful anti-abortion group to head public affairs at the Department of Health and Human Services, the Trump administration plans to bring another anti-abortion advocate into the ranks at HHSthis time to oversee the Title X program, which allocates nearly $300 million per year in family planning funds to providers across the country and shapes policy and regulation about topics like contraception and teen pregnancy.
Politico reported on Monday that the administration has tapped Teresa Manning, a law professor and former employee of two anti-abortion groups, to be the deputy assistant secretary of the Office of Population Affairs, the department within HHS that oversees Title X. Manning is currently listed in the HHS employee directory, although the White House did not confirm the appointment to Politico. Manning, an adjunct professor at the Antonin Scalia Law School at George Mason University, was formerly a legislative analyst at the conservative Family Research Council and a lobbyist for the National Right to Life Committee, the largest US organization opposing abortion.
Manning has questioned the efficacy of contraception in preventing pregnancy, and also said the government shouldn't play any role in family planningthe foundational ideas behind the federal family planning program she will now be tasked with overseeing. In a 2003 radio interview, Manning noted that pro-choice advocates "promote contraception and birth control as a way to reduce the incidence of abortion. There really is no evidence to support that. In fact, the incidence of contraception use and the incidence of abortion go up hand in hand." She also said that pro-choice advocates view abortion as a backup form of contraception for when birth control fails (oral contraception is effective over 99 percent of the time when taken properly): "Of course, contraception doesn't work. Its efficacy is very low especially when you consider over years," she said. Manning continued: "The prospect that contraception would always prevent the conception of a child is preposterous."
Manning (who at the time had the last name Wagner) was quoted in a 2001 press release opposing the distribution of the morning-after pill over the counter, claiming the pills are abortifacients that "destroy the human life already conceived." (Medical consensus disagrees, as the pills only prevent fertilization.) Manning also authored a 1999 article for the Family Research Council titled "The Empty Promise of Contraception." The head of Trump's HHS, former Georgia congressman Tom Price, also has a long history of opposing contraceptive access, including Obamacare's mandate that health insurance cover birth control costs.
Read more: http://www.motherjones.com/politics/2017/05/donald-trump-hhs-teresa-manning-contraception-abortion
bucolic_frolic
(43,123 posts)If progressives are forced to spend defending our ideals, they'll have
less money to support Democratic candidates
dweller
(23,625 posts)everyday is like Opposite Day in this
so called pResident's regime ...
SHRED
(28,136 posts)Everyone knows that.
crazylikafox
(2,754 posts)I'm convinced that the Donald doesn't even know who these people are and what they stand for. He just signs whatever his people put in front of him.
You would think that this is one area where Ivanka would at least make an effort.
grantcart
(53,061 posts)babies are born and delivered like this:
NastyRiffraff
(12,448 posts)It's like they're actively looking for people who have the stupidest, most anti-science, anti-women, anti-common sense views and give them a role in an agency that stands for everything they're against.
MindPilot
(12,693 posts)There is an Antonin Scalia Law Schoo?! What other bottom-tier programs are available at George Mason University? Does good 'ole GMU partner with Trump University to invite students to attend the Al Bundy School of Business, the Hitchins-O'Hare School of Divinity, or perhaps the very popular Carson Medical School?
I also heard Ted Nugent will be heading up their music program next semester.
The law school was originally named the Antonin Scalia School of Law until people outside of the school recognized the acronym. It was then changed to ASLS.
Zing Zing Zingbah
(6,496 posts)or they are lying.
I bet this woman has probably used contraceptives her whole life and then she goes and says shit like this. Please, just about any woman on the planet can vouch for contraceptives preventing pregnancy. They really do work.
This is like doubting the efficacy of eating food in preventing starvation.
RVN VET71
(2,690 posts)It's sex for pleasure. Seriously. These women believe you do "it" to have children, quick in and out, fertilize the egg and, voila, a little baby jesus. They oppose a woman's freedom to shop around, to party around, they are horrified by the thought of it, and want to do whatever they can -- even lie egregiously in public -- to make it stop, make it go away.
(Meanwhile their husbands . . .well, Mike Pence aside . . . operate under a different set of rules.)
Zing Zing Zingbah
(6,496 posts)If the women are only having sex to have a baby with their husbands then the men aren't getting sex nearly as much as they want.
BlueStater
(7,596 posts)It's like he does these things just to see how much of a shithead it's humanly possible for him to be.