Anti-Choice activists to run key functions at Department of Health and Human Services.
Issue:
Recent appointments at HHS (Teresa Manning and Charmaine Yoest) underscore the threat to reproductive autonomy posed by this administration. In addition to abortion, both appointees oppose the use of IUDs, the form of birth control that is one of the most effective at preventing pregnancy, according to the CDC. Manning and Yoest will be in positions to promote their views as representatives of the federal government, increasing their potential to sway public opinion through misinformation (see below).
Action:
Contact Representative Sanford and Senators Graham and Scott, and tell them you oppose Trump’s HHS appointments, Teresa Manning, and Charmaine Yoest, who serve to misinform women and undermine their access to crucial reproductive health care.
Contact Information:
Sanford:
- Email (website): https://sanford.house.gov
- DC Phone: (202) 225-3176
- Lowcountry: (843) 352-7572
Fax: (843) 352-7620
Graham:
- Email (website): https://www.senate.gov
- DC Phone: (202) 224-5972
- DC Fax: (202) 224-3808
- Lowcountry Phone: (843) 849-3887
- Lowcountry Fax: (843) 971-3669
Scott:
- DC Phone: (202) 224-6121, Toll Free: (855) 425-6324
- DC Fax: (202) 228-5143
- Lowcountry Phone: (843) 727-4525
- Lowcountry Fax: (855) 802-9355
Background:
- Teresa Manning, the new deputy assistant secretary for population, has stated, “contraception doesn’t work” . Her appointment would give her oversight of Title X, a quarter-of-a-billion-dollar federal program that provides contraceptive services to low-income and uninsured women and men, and a hand in guiding the federal government’s policy toward teen pregnancy, family planning, and pregnancy prevention.
- Charmaine Yoest, the former president of Americans United for Life, has been named assistant secretary of health and human services in charge of public affairs. She is a longtime foe of abortion rights, who has insisted that abortion increases a woman’s risk of breast cancer, a claim that theNational Cancer Institute, the American Cancer Society and the American Congress of Obstetricians and Gynecologists have decisively rejected, based on an abundance of research.
- They both think IUDs effectively cause abortions, even though that runs contrary to the medical consensus.
https://www.nytimes.com/2017/05/02/opinion/abortion-charmaine-yoest-teresa-manning.html
https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2017/may/01/trump-teresa-manning-family-planning-role
SIAN Contact: Pam Madaio
SIAN Email: seaislandsactionnetwork@gmail.com
Sea Islands Action Network 