PBS NewsHour: Abortion Politics -- January 2, 2003

Bush actively supporting anti-abortion position. In new regulations embryos are classified as human subjects, to be protected in medical and scientific research. In other new regulations the definition of children was expanded to include the unborn.

Example number three involves the naming of Dr. W. David Hager, along with other pro-life physicians, to a Food and Drug Administration panel on reproductive health.

He ... worked with pro-life groups on this petition, filed earlier this year. It calls on the FDA to rescind approval of the abortion-inducing drug Mifeprex, formerly known as RU-486. The drug was approved by the FDA in 2000, and has been used safely by more than 100,000 U.S. women to induce abortions in the early stages of pregnancy.

In one book he co-wrote with his wife, Linda, he advises women suffering from premenstrual syndrome to "ask the Holy Spirit to show you how to access his supernatural grace and strength on your worst PMS days." In another, he assures women trying to conceive that "Jesus values you enough to be concerned about your fertility."

Ann Stone is a Republican who voted for President Bush. But she also heads Republicans for Choice, a group fighting to protect abortion rights. She says Hager is the wrong man for the FDA job.

He believes in Jesus as a source of healing and the power of prayer and all that, and as a Christian, I can certainly understand that. But I don't think we'd see Jesus on earth advocating that the FDA be out there praying over people to heal them.

Meanwhile, several other newly announced appointees to the same FDA panel also have drawn the wrath of pro- choice advocates.

One has been a member of the board of a pro-life physician's group, while another advocates only natural family planning, or the so-called rhythm method, and opposes all other forms of contraception on pro-life grounds.

These are supposed to be scientific panels not crazy religious debating societies. By the way Jesus as a rabbi of his time, would have believed the soul entered the body with the first breath. No breath - no soul.