'fertility is not a disease'

The Office of Population Affairs is the government entity we've entrusted to enforce Title X. Susan Orr, appointed to head the OPA last year by Bush, just resigned. I hadn't heard of her before this but she is practically a caricature of the right's approach to public health:

'Orr applauded a Bush proposal to stop requiring all health insurance plans for federal employees to cover a broad range of birth control. "We're quite pleased, because fertility is not a disease," said Orr, then an official with the Family Research Council.' (WP)

As bootstrap analysis points out, this is so flawed - "neither is pregnancy, but we manage to cover that with insurance". And of course, I'd rather turn to the World Health Organization than to the lobbyists at the Family Research Council for a definition of health:

'Health is a state of complete physical, mental and social well-being and not merely the absence of disease or infirmity.' (WHO)

Orr's professional degrees are from the university founded by Pat Robertson. It's no surprise that she's involved in abstinence-only sex ed. But this was the clincher, for me, which makes me both laugh at this absurdity and shudder at the power given to this woman: "Real Women Stay Married".

Ask Health and Human Services Secretary Mike Leavitt (Orr's former boss) to preserve access to birth control options for low-income Americans - hopefully Orr's short term in power will not have any lasting effect on Title X.