Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton joined birth control advocates Thursday in demanding that the Bush administration withdraw an appointment that places federal family planning funds under the control of a woman they consider hostile to contraception programs.
Susan Orr, who has been one of the top Department of Health and Human Services officials dealing with child welfare, was appointed this week as the agency's acting deputy assistant secretary for population affairs. That puts her in charge of $283 million in 2007 federal funding for a range of family planning services as well as funding for abstinence education.
Clinton, the front-runner for the Democratic presidential nomination, said Orr's appointment ''sends a message to women that ideology trumps women's health.''
''It's beyond satire to see what this administration has once again done,'' Clinton said during a phone-in news conference. ''It's the fox guarding the henhouse when it comes to family planning.''
Orr worked in Health and Human Services as a child welfare specialist during Bill Clinton's presidency and later served as senior director for marriage and family at the Family Research Council, a conservative advocacy group that supports abstinence-only education and often opposes initiatives to broaden access to contraception.
''This really is an Alice in Wonderland moment, where you have an individual appointed for a position overseeing birth control who opposes federal involvement in birth control,'' said Rep. Diana DeGette, a Democrat from Colorado, who also joined in the news conference hosted by the Planned Parenthood Federation of America.
Clinton, DeGette, and two other Democrats, Sen. Patty Murray, of Washington and Rep. Louise Slaughter of New York, said they would write to Health and Human Services secretary Mike Leavitt asking that Orr be replaced.
''We need a candidate with a serious commitment to women's health,'' Murray said.
In her new post, which is not subject to Senate confirmation, Orr oversees Title X, the federal family planning program that serves more than 5 million low-income Americans annually. It is credited with helping prevent more than 1 million unintended pregnancies each year.
A Health and Human Services spokesman, Kevin Schweers, said Orr wouldn't have accepted the job if she couldn't support the Bush administration's policies, including providing ''safe and effective contraceptive products and services to clients in need.''
''Of course, we also support the teaching of abstinence to young people as the only 100% effective means of preventing pregnancy, HIV, and sexually transmitted infections,'' Schweers added.
Several of the groups opposing Orr's appointment have chided her for a remark made in 2001, when she praised the Bush administration for proposing to give federal employees the option to choose a health plan that didn't include family planning coverage.
''We're quite pleased, because fertility is not a disease,'' said Orr, who was then with the Family Research Council.
Planned Parenthood's president, Cecile Richards, said Orr's appointment was dismaying because it signaled an uphill fight to gain more federal funding for family planning.
With the Democrats now controlling congress, ''we stand to address the underfunding,'' Richards said. ''We need an ally in the federal government.''
This is the second time in 12 months that a controversy had flared over the same job.
Planned Parenthood and its allies also opposed the appointment last year of physician Eric Keroack to head the population affairs office, citing his previous work with an organization that opposed contraception. Keroack resigned in March after Medicaid officials in Massachusetts launched an investigation into his private practice. (David Crary, AP)
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