Valerie Huber (L), VP Mike Pence, Teresa Manning (R)

Teresa Manning, the controversial official in charge of the Title X federal family planning program, was escorted from the Department of Health and Human Services premises 10 days ago. Manning's initial HHS appointment was a gut punch to ALL Dem women activists and some Republicans, too.

I can imagine Sen. Murkowski and Collin registering major complaints that her office was running more than two months behind schedule in approving states' family-planning grants. That's because Manning doesn't believe in family planning unless it's done naturally with temperature taking and abstinence. Imagine that in 2018 America, Trump is determined to take away women's right to birth control.

Valerie Huber is not much better for women, but at least Huber knows that she, too, can get the boot by taking away women's access to birth control. Acting Huber is a social conservative who has actively supported the failed abstinence-only sex educations programs in schools. She is equally skeptical about birth control.

Hearings opened for on Jan. 9 for HHS nominee Alex Azar to replace Tom Price as HHS Secretary. Women's health groups launched a full-scale confrontation around women's reproductive health -- clearly under assault by the Trump administration. The issues go far beyond abortion rights and into contraception. Trump has stacked HHS with women who don't believe in birth control.

A new group Equity Forward will be acting as a watchdog focused on reproductive health care at the Department of Health and Human Services.

Mary Alice Carter, the executive director of Equity Forward, which officially launched Friday, said the nonpartisan group will hold accountable organizations and individuals they argue limit access to reproductive health care.

Its first project, HHS watch, will include a full audit of decision makers at the agency, investigating their public positions relating to reproductive health, their backgrounds and alliances, and then monitoring their actions at HHS.

“Americans deserve to know when their government is hiring people with backgrounds antithetical to the mission of the offices in which they serve,” Carter said.

“The reason we exist is because there hasn’t been an organization like this up until now, and there are ways that organizations, entities and individuals have been able to act without full transparency.”

Equity Forward takes issue with political appointees at HHS that have worked for anti-abortion groups or have made critical comments in the past about some types of contraception.

“Instead of hiring qualified public health professionals, the administration has put anti-contraception political activists in charge of four million women’s birth control access,” Carter said.

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