By Dr. Lawrence Smith, Population Institute, at RH Reality Check.

The pious moralizing of social conservatives grates on the national psyche, its hypocrisy evident for all to see.  But it's the ethics of social conservatives sucking tax dollars from public health programs and personally profiting from them that causes concern.  Congressional leaders should not just redirect federal monies from failed abstinence-only programs to proven public health strategies, they should investigate thoroughly, for they are likely to find Corruption, with a capital C, and that rhymes with T, and that stands for Trouble.

Last week, RH Reality Check wrote about the National Abstinence Education Association (NAEA), and its affiliation with Creative Research Concepts (CRC), makers of the Swift Boat ads in 2004. The team looks to intimidate policy makers with threats of aggressive lobbying and public relations campaigns, in the genre CRC redefined, smear and fear.

Last Friday, reporters managed to stump 2008 presidential hopeful John McCain.  What tough topic caused the senator to pause awkwardly and stumble for an answer?  Iraq? No ... Poverty?  Try again ... Healthcare?  Getting closer ... Contraception?  Bingo!  Specifically, whether contraceptives help stop the spread of HIV and should they be publicly funded.

Now, this should be a no-brainer.  Honestly, anyone who has been through sex ed should know that condoms are highly effective in preventing HIV infection.  Oh wait ... except that abstinence-only education gets tons of funding (while comprehensive sex ed gets none) and so it is prevalent in our nation's schools despite the fact that it doesn't teach kids medically accurate information, it doesn't teach them how to protect themselves from sexually transmitted infections and abstinence-only programs actually spread misinformation and religious dogma.  Well, don't worry--McCain is also confused about his position on sexuality education.  After a long pause, he decided that he thinks he supports the president's policy.

In 2006, only one female condom was available for every 100 women worldwide. This disturbing fact won't surprise anyone who's ever tried to locate female condoms. My first attempt to purchase them resulted in a confused pharmacy technician showing me various spermicidal gels, vaginal sponges and a male condom marketed for women. Before traipsing to pharmacies across DC, I decided to call around. Of the 22 locations I called, 12 of which were pharmacies, only five carried female condoms: two Planned Parenthoods, two student health centers, and an HIV/AIDS clinic. None of these locations were open after business hours and the closest provider was a 20-minute metro ride from my office.  

The fact that I had to traverse the city to find a female condom points to greater problems than those presented for sexual spontaneity. This experience starkly highlights a failure to market and distribute one of the most effective prevention methods, and the only available female-controlled method, against the sexual transmission of HIV.

Robert F. Kennedy once said, "Others have seen what is and asked why. I have seen what could be and asked why not." I like this quote because it challenges those of us working in the reproductive health field to ask the vision question - - the question that begins with "why not?"

Why not a society where young people are valued rather than stereotyped, prized as assets rather than discounted as liabilities? Why not a society where sexuality is viewed as a normal, positive aspect of being human, of being alive, rather than as forbidden fruit to be locked away in a fortress of shame, fear, and denial? Why not a society where public policy is based on science and research rather than politics and ideology? Why not a society where values, morality, and character are used to infuse sexuality with meaning - with its truly human dimension - rather than misused to deny young people information that could one day save their lives.

Last week, the 8th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals heard an appeal of a 2005 federal court ruling that mandated Union Pacific Railroad to cover contraceptives in its health insurance plan.

Kathryn Joyce is working on a book about conservative Christian women's movements, to be published by Beacon Press.

Between 1985 and 1990, three books were published by small, independent Christian presses that would have come to have a profound impact on Christian Right thinking on family planning, feminism and birth control. Charles Provan's The Bible and Birth Control, Mary Pride's The Way Home: Away from Feminism and Back to Reality, and Rick and Jan Hess's A Full Quiver: Family Planning and the Lordship of Christ. Together, these three books laid a comprehensive framework for the pro-natalist, anti-birth control movement today known as Quiverfull, wherein believers eschew all forms of birth control, natural and hormonal, and argue that Christian families should leave the number of children they have entirely in the hands of God.

Despite the public outcry last week for our government to work together and make progress, the White House steered clear of governing from the middle and bipartisanship in a new staffing move. Today the White House named Eric Keroack, MD as the new government official overseeing Title X, the program that provides contraceptive and other reproductive health services in every state of the nation to those in need. He'll start work on Monday.