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Trump picks pro-life activist to head HHS family planning program

 Juliet Eilperin

By Juliet Eilperin The Washington Post

Published May 2, 2017

Trump picks pro-life activist to head HHS family planning program

President Donald Trump is placing antiabortion activist Teresa Manning in charge of the Title X program, which provides family planning funding for poor Americans or those without health insurance, according to individuals briefed on the decision.


Manning's selection as the Department of Health and Human Services' deputy assistant secretary for population affairs marks the second agency appointment within three days that has pleased abortion foes and angered abortion rights proponents.


On Friday, the White House announced that Trump had picked Charmaine Yoest, former president of Americans United for Life, as the department's assistant secretary of public affairs.


Manning, a former lobbyist with the National Right to Life Committee and legislative analyst for the conservative Family Research Council, has criticized several family planning methods over the course of her career.


"Of course, contraception doesn't work," she said during a 2003 NPR interview. "Its efficacy is very low, especially when you consider over years - which a lot of contraception health advocates want to start women in their adolescent years, when they're extremely fertile, incidentally, and continue for 10, 20, 30 years. The prospect that contraception would always prevent the conception of a child is preposterous."

She has repeatedly objected to use of RU-486, also known as "the morning-after pill," saying in a 2001 news statement while working at the Family Research Council: "A major, if not dominant, mechanism of the morning-after pill is the destruction of a human life already conceived."


As with Yoest's appointment Friday, White House spokesman Ninio J. Fetalvo said in an email, "All appointment announcements are sent through our press distribution list."


Roughly 4 million Americans receive family planning coverage through the Title X program, and the majority of them are low-income and people of color.


One anti-abortion activist, who asked not to be identified because Manning's appointment was not official, hailed the pick in an email. "She is a great selection for any role like this, is an experienced attorney, principled leader, with a devotion to sound public policy, respect for life and women's health," the advocate said.


But reproductive rights activists were quick to decry the appointment, which was first reported by Politico.

"The latest way the Trump administration is attacking reproductive health is by appointing two people to the Department of Health and Human Services who want to stand directly in the way of patients getting the health care they need," said Nancy Stanwood, a doctor and board member of Physicians for Reproductive Health.


And Sen. Patty Murray, D-Wash., the ranking member on the Senate Health, Education, Labor, and Pensions Committee, said in a statement that "Trump is stacking his administration with one extreme, anti-abortion activist after another and ignoring the millions of men and women who don't want to see women's health and rights go backward."


"Ms. Manning has repeatedly spread false information about women's health and advocated for policies that would undermine women's access to birth control and other essential health care. She is a completely inappropriate choice for this role," Murray added.


Just last month, Trump signed legislation that allows states to withhold federal family-planning dollars from clinics that provide abortion services. That move could deprive Planned Parenthood and other family-planning providers of tens of millions of federal dollars.

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