Important - Women's Health Issue
Whether you're Right or Left on the issue of women's reproductive
rights, please consider the following...
President Bush has announced his plan to select Dr. W. David
Hager to head up the Food and Drug Administration's (FDA)
Reproductive Health Drugs Advisory Committee. The committee
has not met for more than two years, during which time its charter
has lapsed. As a result, the Bush Administration is tasked with
filling all eleven positions with new members. This position does
not require Congressional approval.
The FDA's Reproductive Health Drugs Advisory Committee
makes crucial decisions on matters relating to drugs used in the
practice of obstetrics, gynecology and related specialties,
including hormone therapy, contraception, treatment for
infertility, and medical alternatives to surgical procedures for
sterilization and pregnancy termination. Dr. Hager's views of
reproductive health care are far outside the mainstream and a
setback for reproductive technology.
Dr. Hager is a practicing OB/GYN who describes himself as "pro-
life" and refuses to prescribe contraceptives to unmarried women.
Hager is the author of "As Jesus Cared for Women: Restoring
Women Then and Now." The book blends biblical accounts of
Christ healing women with case studies from Hager's practice. In
the book Dr. Hager wrote with his wife, entitled "Stress and the
Woman's Body," he suggests that women who suffer from
premenstrual syndrome should seek help from reading the bible
and praying. As an editor and contributing author of "The
Reproduction Revolution: A Christian Appraisal of Sexuality,
Reproductive Technologies and the Family," Dr. Hager appears to
have endorsed the medically inaccurate assertion that the common
birth control pill is an abortifacient.
Hagar's mission is religiously motivated. He has an ardent interest
in revoking approval for mifepristone (formerly known as RU-
486) as a safe and early form of medical abortion. Hagar recently
assisted the Christian Medical Association in a "citizen's petition"
which calls upon the FDA to revoke its approval of mifepristone
in the name of women's health.
Hager's desire to overturn mifepristone's approval on religious
grounds rather than scientific merit would halt the development of
mifepristone as a treatment for numerous medical conditions
disproportionately affecting women, including breast cancer,
uterine cancer, uterine fibroid tumors, psychotic depression,
bipolar depression and Cushing's syndrome. Women rely on the
FDA to ensure their access to safe and effective drugs for
reproductive health care including products that prevent
pregnancy.
For some women, such as those with certain types of diabetes and
those undergoing treatment for cancer, pregnancy can be a life-
threatening condition. We are concerned that Dr. Hager's strong
religious beliefs may color his assessment of technologies that are
necessary to protect women's lives or to preserve and promote
women's health. Hager's track record of using religious beliefs to
guide his medical decision-making makes him a dangerous and
inappropriate candidate to serve as chair of this committee.
Critical drug public policy and research must not be held hostage
by antiabortion politics. Members of this important panel should
be appointed on the basis of science and medicine, rather than
politics and religion. American women deserve no less.
WHAT CAN YOU DO?
1. SEND THIS TO EVERY PERSON WHO IS CONCERNED
ABOUT WOMEN'S RIGHTS.
2. OPPOSE THE PLACEMENT OF THIS MAN BY
CONTACTING THE WHITE HOUSE AND TELL THEM HE IS
TOTALLY UNACCEPTABLE ON ANY LEVEL.

Please email President Bush at president@whitehouse.gov or call
the White House at (202) 456-1111 or (202) 456-1414 and say "I
oppose the appointment of Dr. Hager to the FDA Reproductive
Health Drugs Advisory Committee. Mixing religion and medicine
is unacceptable. Using the FDA to promote a political agenda is
inappropriate and seriously threatens all women's health."

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