Another Anti-Choice Trump Appointee Just Got More Power to Push Her Dangerous Agenda

Health and Human Services Secretary Alex Azar announced today that the agency’s Office of Adolescent Health will be reorganized under the Office of Population Affairs, a department led by anti-abortion Trump appointee Diane Foley. Foley is just the latest dangerous Trump appointee to be put in charge of women’s access to reproductive health care and education.

 

Foley, who will now oversee HHS’s Office of Adolescent Health, was previously the president and CEO of the Life Network, which operates crisis pregnancy centers and runs abstinence-only education programs for teens.

 

Slate: “Until last year, she was the president and CEO of the Life Network, an organization that operates two anti-abortion crisis pregnancy centers in Colorado Springs that run abstinence-only education programs for teens.”

 

As the leader of Life Network, Foley compared abortion to the Holocaust and slavery and promoted the medically debunked theory of “post-abortion syndrome.”

 

Bustle: “Tonic reports that Diane Foley compared abortion to the Holocaust and slavery. […] Foley made the remarks during an address at Charis Bible College on Sept. 15, 2016, while she was the president and CEO of Life Network, an anti-abortion Christian group.”

 

Slate: “Life Network and Foley both promote an idea they call ‘post-abortion syndrome,’ whose stated symptoms include ‘guilt, anxiety, feeling numb, depression, avoiding babies and pregnant women, inability to bond with future children, eating disorders, drug and alcohol abuse, [and] fear of infertility.’ No medical authority has recognized the existence of such a syndrome.”

 

Foley isn’t the only anti-science and anti-choice Trump appointee at HHS: Valerie Huber, a lifelong advocate for abstinence-only, anti-contraception sex education, leads HHS’s Office of Global Affairs.

 

Teen Vogue: “In 2016, a study came out showing that information about contraception methods and contraceptive use led to a decrease in teen pregnancy rates; the research stated that the amount of sexual activity among teens hadn’t changed over the course of the study. […] Even with the data, Huber still argued that abstinence was a more important educational subject than birth control methods. ‘As public health experts and policymakers, we must normalize sexual delay more than we normalize teen sex, even with contraception,’ Huber told PBS.

 

Shannon Lee Goessling, Trump’s pick to lead the Office of Violence Against Women and another dangerously out of touch Trump appointee, believes that more guns are the solution to America’s domestic violence issue.

 

The Trace: “President Donald Trump’s nominee to lead the Office of Violence Against Women believes that arming women in domestic violence situations is key to their safety, despite experts’ warnings that the introduction of guns into abusive relationships can imperil victims.”