US: Family planning groups have condemned President George Bush's appointment of a prominent anti-abortion activist as head of the federal government's family planning effort.
Eric Keroack, a Boston gynaecologist, has long promoted sexual abstinence outside marriage, compared premarital sex to drug use and opposed the distribution of contraceptives.
As head of the Office of Population Affairs, Dr Keroack will oversee a $283 million (€221 million) annual budget for federally funded teen pregnancy, family planning and abstinence programmes.
He is currently medical director of A Woman's Concern, a Massachusetts non-profit organisation that runs six centres offering free pregnancy testing, ultrasounds and counselling to "help women escape the temptation and violence of abortion", and which opposes contraception.
"A Woman's Concern is persuaded that the crass commercialisation and distribution of birth control is demeaning to women, degrading of human sexuality and adverse to human health and happiness," its contraception policy says.
Cecile Richards, president of the Planned Parenthood Federation of America, condemned the appointment yesterday.
"The appointment of anti-birth control, anti-sex education advocate Dr Eric Keroack to oversee the nation's family planning programme is striking proof that the Bush administration remains dramatically out of step with the nation's priorities," she said.
In a 2003 presentation to the International Abstinence Leadership Conference in Las Vegas, Dr Keroack said teenage sexual activity blunts the brain's ability to develop emotional relationships.
Anti-abortion leaders described Dr Keroack as a pioneer in using medical arguments for discouraging women from having abortions. "He was one of the first doctors ever to really get involved in the medical aspect of some of these pregnancy resource centres," Raymond Ruddy of the anti-abortion Gerard Health Foundation said.