NCL disappointed by President Trump’s appointments of Teresa Manning and Charmaine Yoest to key HHS positions – National Consumers League
May 2, 2017
Media contact: NCL Communications, Cindy Hoang, cindyh@nclnet.org, (202) 207-2832
Washington, DC—The National Consumers League (NCL), the nation’s pioneering consumer organization, founded in 1899, joins our colleagues in the women’s and reproductive health communities in expressing grave concerns about President Trump’s appointment of Teresa Manning to the position of Deputy Assistant Secretary for Population Affairs at the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (HHS).
In this HHS position, Manning, a former lobbyist with the National Right to Life Committee and legislative analyst for the conservative Family Research Council, will be in charge of the Office of Population Affairs (OPA) and the Title X National Family Planning Program, the nation’s only dedicated source of federal funding for family planning. The Title X program supports high-quality, culturally sensitive family planning services and other preventive health care for millions of low-income, under-insured and uninsured individuals who may otherwise lack access to health care.
“It is inexcusable for the President to appoint an anti-choice and avowed opponent of birth control to head the office responsible for overseeing the Title X program. Teresa Manning has a long history of attacking contraception, calling family planning ‘something that occurs between a husband and a wife and God.’ Appointing Teresa Manning to head OPA is tantamount to putting a fox in charge of the hen house,” said NCL’s Executive Director Sally Greenberg. “Unfortunately, Manning’s appointment is yet another example of the Trump Administration’s anti-woman agenda.”
Additionally, just last week, President Trump appointed Charmaine Yoest, the former President and CEO of the anti-choice group Americans United for Life, to the position of HHS Assistant Secretary for Public Affairs. “We know that the best way to reduce abortion is to provide universal free birth control. Rather than protecting and promoting women’s reproductive health, however, the Trump Administration is dead set on rolling back the clock on the health and well-being of our nation’s women,” said Greenberg.
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About the National Consumers League
The National Consumers League, founded in 1899, is America’s pioneer consumer organization. Our mission is to protect and promote social and economic justice for consumers and workers in the United States and abroad. For more information, visit www.nclnet.org.
