WASHINGTON - June 21 - NARAL Pro-Choice America, the nation’s leading advocate for personal privacy and a woman’s right to choose, kicked off a grassroots campaign last week asking members and pro-choice activists to oppose the potential reappointment of W. David Hager to the FDA Advisory Committee for Reproductive Health Drugs. Almost twenty thousand activists have already sent letters to President Bush.

Hager, whose term on the committee is set to expire on June 30, 2004, is a longtime far-right activist whose initial appointment to the committee drew widespread condemnation. As a physician, he drew attention for requiring a demeaning “ethical lecture” before prescribing birth control to unmarried women, refusing to provide IUDs because he incorrectly considers them a form of abortion, and writing a book recommending Scripture readings to treat premenstrual syndrome and other ailments.

Despite overwhelming support by the medical community, and the majority of his fellow FDA advisory committee members, Hager recently voted to oppose over-the-counter sale of Plan B® emergency contraception. Just last week, the American Medical Association denounced the decision to deny over-the-counter status for emergency contraception.

NARAL Pro-Choice America Interim President Elizabeth Cavendish said, “More than a million Americans marched to protect women’s lives last April. We certainly don’t want to see David Hager, the Bush Administration’s poster boy for imposing out-of-the-mainstream ideology over sound medical science, reappointed.”

“American women cannot afford another term of Hager’s anti-choice and anti-family planning views at the FDA. NARAL Pro-Choice America will make sure the public is aware of the dangers posed by a Hager reappointment.”

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