Mary Alice Carter Leads New Equity Forward, Monitoring Women's Reproductive Health Care Rights At HHS

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. 

Mary Alice Carter Leads Equity Forward

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.

Squirming Over His Support For Roy Moore, Trump Now Suggests That His 'Access Hollywood' Tape Is A Fake

Our tiny hands, big-prick mind president is running away from his own confirmation of being a sexual predator on the 'Access Hollywood' tape. After apologizing for his comments a year ago, Trump now challenges the authenticity of the tape.

Trump is squirming in his Oval Office hot seat, not only because of the Mueller investigation, but over the growing #MeToo campaign and, in particular, the Roy Moore-Doug Jones Alabama senate race. 

According to The New York Times, Trump views the recent sexual misconduct allegations against Alabama Republican senate candidate Roy Moore as being akin to his own accusations. 

The Times reports: "He sees the calls for Mr. Moore to step aside as a version of the response to the now-famous Access Hollywood tape, in which he boasted about grabbing women’s genitalia, and the flood of groping accusations against him that followed soon after. He suggested to a senator earlier this year that it was not authentic, and repeated that claim to an adviser more recently. "(Note that in the hours after the tape was released in October 2016, Trump acknowledged that the voice was his, and he apologized.)

Republican candidate Moore is accused by eight women of pursuing romantic relationships with them when they were teenagers. At the time he was an assistant district attorney in his 30s. Two of the women have accused Moore of assault or molestation, which he vehemently denies. 

Besides Trump's endorsement of Roy Moore for the Senate, Trump feels the need to back the popular argument among Alabama men, asking why the women didn't come forward sooner. Numerous stories confirm that Trump doesn't believe the women accusing Moore, just as he accuses all the women alleging sexual misconduct by him as being liars. 

Al.com has a new guest post today by Dabney P. Evans, PhD, MPH entitled 'Why Roy Moore's accusers stayed silent for so long.