Protecting Women

Ayelish McGarvey has written the single most devastating profile of a public hypocrite that I've ever read. Some of you may remember David Hager, the FDA appointee who recommends belief in Christ as the best medicine for female ailments and has taken an almost entirely faith-based approach to public medicine, which led the Bush administration to appoint him to the FDA's committee on reproductive health drugs. He's a "noted" women's health expert and is famous, at least in his telling, for his enormous success at counseling from his own experience. That must've helped him decide kill the effort to make "Plan B" an over-the-counter medication. On his committee, 23 voted in favor of making it OTC, and four voted against. The FDA, in a wholly unprecedented ruling, denied the committee's will and stalled the drug. Service such as this has made Hager an almost certain bet for a second term, at least until today.

Ayelish spoke to Hager's ex-wife at great length and the story that emerges of their marriage is nothing less than chilling. Martial prostitution, forced sodomy, drugged sodomy, abuse...it's one of the most unbelievable things I've ever read. When this story hits, watch for conservatives to argue that liberals said Clinton's sex life shouldn't matter, and so neither should Hager's. Ayelish dispenses with the argument quite simply, but it's going to be just stunning to see folks smear his abused wife and defend a rapist.

I'm rambling. Read the article, it's the best thing I've read in months.