Keroack Appointment 'Roadblock' Toward 'Middle Ground' Of Reducing Abortions, Maintaining Abortion Rights, Opinion Piece Says

Democrats in Congress plan to consider several bills that would "at the very least expand family planning programs to more women, especially poor women," but President Bush's recent appointment of Eric Keroack to deputy assistant secretary of HHS' Office of Population Affairs is a "roadblock to this common ground," Boston Globe columnist Ellen Goodman writes in an opinion piece (Goodman, Boston Globe, 1/19). Keroack before the appointment was medical director for A Woman's Concern, a pregnancy-counseling organization. Many family planning advocates were angered by the appointment -- which does not require Senate confirmation -- noting that A Women's Concern opposes contraception and supports sexual abstinence until marriage. Keroack will advise HHS Secretary Mike Leavitt on issues including reproductive health and adolescent pregnancy, and he will administer $283 million in annual family planning grants that HHS says are "designed to provide access to contraceptive supplies and information to all who want and need them with priority given to low-income persons" (Kaiser Daily Women's Health Policy Report, 12/22/06). According to Goodman, Keroack's appointment "has produced a furor that has yet to diminish" or "succeed." Abortion-rights groups have spent at least 12 years "with their ear to the middle ground, listening to the people who want to keep abortion legal but less numerous," Goodman writes, adding that "most Americans have wearily come to agree on the best way to reduce abortions." A policy of "prevention first" cannot take place after Bush "handed the deed for common ground" to Keroack, she concludes (Boston Globe, 1/19).

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