In 2008, Barack Obama was asked to explain his support for
contraceptive-based sex education. He replied: “I’ve got two
daughters, 9 years old and 6 years old. I am going to teach them
first of all about values and morals. But if they make a mistake, I
don’t want them punished with a baby…”
Last week, he invoked his daughters again in the context
of contraceptives and abortifacients, but this time to strike an
ostensibly conservative stance against easy access to them. “I will
say this, as the father of two young daughters: I think it is
important for us to make sure that, you know, we apply some common
sense to various rules when it comes to over-the-counter medicine,”
he said.
Obama was backing up the supposedly independent decision
of Health and Human Services Secretary Kathleen Sebelius to reject
the FDA’s approval of over-the-counter purchases by minors of Plan
B One-Step, an emergency contraceptive and abortifacient. Obama
said that as a parent it troubles him to imagine minors picking it
up alongside “bubble gum” and “batteries.”
Liberal groups are outraged by this decision and dismayed
by Obama’s sudden paternalism. They see in it an election-conscious
Plan B two step; he simply wants to take an issue away from the
Republicans next year. Had George W. Bush’s HHS overruled the FDA
on this matter, they note, Obama would have been the first to
denounce it as “anti-science.”
In 2009, Obama had made a show of signing a memorandum
that gave government scientists immunity from politics. “This Order
is an important step in advancing the cause of science in America.
But let’s be clear: promoting science isn’t just about providing
resources — it is also about protecting free and open inquiry,” he
said at the memo signing. “It is about letting scientists like
those here today do their jobs, free from manipulation or coercion,
and listening to what they tell us, even when it’s inconvenient -
especially when it’s inconvenient.”
But for all this bluster the FDA’s decision proved too
inconvenient for him. What scares him is not the thought of minors
buying abortifacients with their bubble gum but Republicans turning
that scenario into an attack ad.
Sebelius was clearly put up to the decision. Despite his
words of support, Obama made sure to leave her holding the
bag; he insisted to the press that she decided the matter all on
her own. Consequently, she now holds a distinction dreaded by any
liberal: she is the first HHS Secretary to veto a ruling by the
FDA. Since she normally reveres FDA scientists, her stated
scientific opposition to their decision — she vaguely asserted in
a press release that they didn’t prove their case — can’t be taken
seriously. Nor do grounds exist for thinking that morality drove
the decision; Sebelius, contrary to Obama’s spinning, didn’t say a
word about concern over parental anxieties in her veto
announcement.
Moreover, Sebelius has a long record in opposition to
parental consent and notification laws. She has never objected to
minors obtaining abortifacients without parental knowledge before,
and even now she doesn’t object to minors obtaining prescriptions
for them through doctors. So whatever quibble she has with the
FDA’s decision is wholly political.
Obama says that her veto rests upon “common sense.”
That’s his euphemism for political circumspection. Just as he knows
it is not quite safe yet politically to endorse gay marriage
openly, so he hesitates before approving of over-the-counter
abortifacients for minors. To scoop up independent voters next
year, he knows that he has to cast himself as a moderate, no matter
how ludicrous this stance appears next to his record.
Insisting that doctors, rather than CVS clerks, guide
minors to abortifacients constitutes credible proof of moderation
in his mind. Republicans, skittish about social issues themselves,
will probably let him get away with this charade.
His citing of parental concerns is utterly phony, since he
doesn’t think parents should have any say over the abortifacient
prescription the doctor gives the child. Also, it bears repeating
that as a state senator in Illinois and then a U.S. Senator he
always voted against parental consent laws. Even mere parental
notification was too much for him. He wanted an America free of
such retrograde restrictions, a revivified country whose liberated
daughters would be the spared the shackles of a baby.
