Attack on Dr. Keroack

The Liberal blogosphere has gone on the attack against Bush's appointment of Dr. Eric Keroack as Deputy Assistant Secretary for Population Affairs over at the Department of Health and Human Services. It seems that Dr. Keroack believes that abstinence is the safest way to avoid pregnancy and STD's, and is on the board of an pro-abstinence organization that teaches the risks and costs of contraception. Slate's Amanda Schaffer finds this unacceptable, since his office oversees the family planning services financed by the federal government. She gives a link to the Office of Family Planning, which describes the functions of that office, and the fact that its budget is $288 million for 2005.
She neglects to mention that his office also oversees Office of Adolescent Pregnancy Programs, which oversees the federal funds spent on abstinence education. This office has a budget of $30.7 million for 2006.
You could make the case that the Secretary overseeing both programs should be equally committed to both, or that he should be nine times more committed to contraception because his office spends 9 times more on artificial birth control than on abstinence.
Or you could ask yourself whether it is possible to be genuinely evenhanded between the two philosophies of believing that sex in any context is an entitlement on the one hand and that marriage is the proper context for sex on the other.