Bush is once again demonstrating his fervent desire to serve the people of this nation with his selection of the head of the FDA Reproductive Health Drugs Advisory Committee. By “the people of his nation,” I mean the White Christian heterosexual males that Bush recognizes as people.
The Committee is going to review FDA decisions on reproductive drugs and traditionally has a large voice in the process of approving drugs for use in reproductive and gynecological health. The selection of the committee’s members is up to the President… no Congressional approval needed.
Dr. David Hager is an OB-GYN who is actively practicing. Yes, he has credentials: he has written some journal articles and been published, and has assisted in the production of some medical textbooks. However, he has also written two books which stress the importance of the healing power of Jesus Christ in women’s lives. One book allegedly suggests that to cure PMS, one should pray to Jesus. Apparently women who don’t believe in Jesus just have to suffer PMS.
Hager has also stated that in his practice, he prefers not to prescribe contraception to unmarried women. He has stated he views emergency contraception, which basically flushes out the reproductive tract if taken within 72 hours of unprotected sex, constitutes an abortion and is therefore immoral. Problem is, no one wants his moral opinion — and emergency contraception is a necessity for women who have had unprotected sex or have been raped.
It sounds to me like Dr. Hager has been living too long in a nice suburban life and has forgotten what the real world is like. Doesn’t he know that even on our relatively conservative campus, half of our students are sexually active and none are married? If that’s what it’s like here, what is it like in the real world? Don’t we need access to birth control so we don’t have to resort to abortion? Isn’t that what they want, for us not to have abortions?
I didn’t elect Bush. But he is still supposed to represent me, and he’s failing to do so. Appointing a man to head this committee who will ignore the needs of most of the population is not the way to go about leading the nation. Then again, Bush seems to show consistently that he forgets exactly who lives in his nation — not all his constituents are white, Christian, male, conservative, and straight. What is going to happen to the rest of us? If democracy is about letting the majority rule, what is going on here?
How much say is this guy going to have? Can he alone deny drugs the FDA has approved?
October 19th, 2002, at 6:10 pm #He cannot go around repealing drugs. But he does have the next-to-final say on everything related to woman’s health drugs, basically. So do you really think Bush is gonna take this guy’s top recommendation and say, “Well, I appointed you, but I have given this a lot of thought and will do the opposite of what you recommend.” No, he’s not going to give it any thought because he’s busy doing a million other things, he’s going to say okay, and some really bad thing is gonna happen. I mean, if these idiot’s had their way, we’d go back to the good ol’ coathanger days.
My problem is how every administration thinks that their election in and of itself is a mandate to reshape the nation to fit their personal views. The point of America is that you don’t do crap based on personal views, because their unreliable. You express your views, and others express their views, and eventually, a consensus is reached that ideally is good for everyone. The average citizen does this by voting, and politicians do this during legislative sessions. Problem is, the Executive, not being the Legislative, doesn’t compare it’s views. It just does whatever the hell it wants. When Clinton came to power, he and Hillary came pretty damn close to socializing healthcare (and you can ask Canada on how succesful that program has been). He also sent Jessie Jackson to Bosnia, and that was such a great idea(anyone wanna tell me Jessie Jackson’s credentials? What is his job title, anyway? National bumbling idiot?). When Bush came to power, he wanted to open up the Alaskan wildlife preserve for oil companies (which he used to own), and then he wanted to go after Iraq (to finish the job his dad started). There are many more examples of this in presidencies, I’m just naming the most well-known. The Executive needs to stop doing whatever it wants without thinking, and it needs to not appoint this man to chair this FDA committee. This man’s credentials involve writing a book, holding a non-professorship at the University of Kansas(or Kentucky, I forget), and being an OB/GYN who won’t prescribe birth control (yeah, like we need more hungry mouths in the world). You know, I think God can take care of anything. But telling women God can cure their PMS sounds very, very fishy, and it’s quite possibly this man has very backward views.
October 21st, 2002, at 2:40 am #