And speaking of health, more lies from the Bush Administration

I ran across an item today via Think Progress that I have to comment on:

Govt Website: Abortions Make Women Feel ‘Sad,’ Resort To ‘Drugs’ And ‘Alcohol’

Yesterday, NARAL discovered that the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) had revised a government website, 4parents.gov, with biased and misleading ideological claims about abortion. From new website:

Some teen pregnancies end in abortion. Abortions can have complications. There may be emotional consequences, as well: some women say that they feel sad and some use more alcohol or drugs than before.

The previous version of the site contained factual information about the rates of teen pregnancy. But these new “facts” on the site are misleading. As the Guttmacher Institute’s May 2006 report noted:

[T]he APA [American Psychological Association] found that “women who are terminating pregnancies that are wanted or who lack support from their partner or parents for the abortion may feel a greater sense of loss, anxiety and distress. For most women, however, the time of greatest distress is likely to be before an abortion; after an abortion, women frequently report feeling ‘relief and happiness.’”

. . . This is not the first time 4parents.gov has put forth misleading information. When the site launched in 2005, it told parents “to convince their teens to stop having sex by telling their children that they are ‘worth it.’” But no resources were provided for “parents whose teen remains sexually active, implying that these youth are not ‘worth it.’” It also referred to a “fetus” as an “unborn baby.”

UPDATE: In 2005, Rep. Henry Waxman (D-CA) sent Leavitt a letter with reviews by scientific experts who concluded that 4parents.gov’s content appeared “to have been guided by ideology.” He also noted that the website was not created by government scientists, as the administration claimed, “but rather through a no-bid contract to the National Physician’s Center for Family Resources, an obscure organization that has taken positions against scientific agencies on important matters of public health.”

So why is this signficant? Because the National Physician's Center for Family Resources also pushes incorrect information about the lgbt community.

The following is a passage from my upcoming book (with information taken from the article, Specter seeks review of teen health site, The Washington Blade, July 29, 2005):

In July 2005, U.S. Senator Arlen Specter asked that the national Health and Human Services look at a certain web site because it allegedly showed inaccurate information about homosexuality and contraception.

The web site, 4parents.gov, received information from an organization called the National Physicians Center for Family Resources. The chairman of the National Physicians Center for Family Resources board, John Whiffen, said the organization was correct regarding what it had printed about homosexuality.

He said:

“It’s fairly well-accepted that smoking is not a good idea. It takes seven years off of your life. It appears that male homosexuality takes more than that off your life."

That claim, as many of you know, comes from a Paul Cameron study. Our discredited friend strikes again.

With former Surgeon General Richard Carmona claiming that the Bush Administration impeded him from doing his job combined with James Holsinger's hearing tomorrow, I can't help but to wonder about this administration's commitment to health care not ruled by psuedo-Christian ideology.