WASHINGTON, DC — Last week, President Bush appointed Susan Orr to oversee federal family planning programs at the Department of Health and Human Services. Orr, who is currently directing HHS child welfare programs, was saluted by the administration as “highly qualified.”Orr’s record, however, betrays an interesting anti-contraceptive history. Before joining DHHS, Orr served as senior director for marriage and family care at the conservative Family Research Council and was an adjunct professor at Pat Robertson’s Regent University.
In 2001, Orr publicly embraced a Bush administration proposal to “stop requiring all health insurance plans for federal employees” to cover a broad range of birth control options.
In a 2000 Weekly Standard article, Orr wrote against requiring health insurance plans to cover contraceptives. “It’s not about choice,” said Orr. “It’s not about health care. It’s about making everyone collaborators with the culture of death.”
Orr also authored a paper in 2000 titled, “Real Women Stay Married.” In it she wrote that women should “think about focusing our eyes, not upon ourselves, but upon the families we form through marriage.”
As head of DHHS, Orr will oversee a $283 million reproductive health program, a $30 million program that encourages abstinence among teenagers, and HHS’s Office of Population Affairs, which funds birth control, pregnancy tests, counseling, and screenings for sexually transmitted diseases and HIV.
The 2008 election can not arrive fast enough, it seems.
