Peter H. Kostmayer Quotes
It is a very sad day for America when political ideology overrules good science and public health practices. The Food and Drug Administration has denied allowing the emergency contraception drug Plan B to be sold over-the-counter—ignoring its own panel of expert physicians, scientists and public health professionals who had voted overwhelmingly in favor of making the drug available over-the-counter … This pandering to right wing radicals will lead to more unwanted pregnancy, more abortions, and another step backwards for the women of our country.
Peter H. Kostmayer, U. S. Congressman (Democrat, PA), President, Population Connection, Press Release, May 7, 2004
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History has shown that as girls and women get educated and learn about family planning, their children are healthier and have better chances of survival and despite the lower death rate the population trend slows as a result of family planning.
The first Jew to run for the Vice Presidency on a major party ticket.
The action referred to the President’s Executive Order Banning U. S. funds going to any organization which distributes information about abortion even if they pay for it with their own funds. Such an action in the United States would have been unconstitutional but foreigners are not entitled to Constitutional protection unless they are in the United States.
At the time, condoms and other forms of contraceptives were illegal to buy, sell, possess or own. As late as 1963 a Connecticut druggist was sentenced to jail for filling a doctor’s prescription for condoms and selling them to a married couple even thought the woman might die if she again became pregnant. The Supreme Court (Griswald v. Connecticut) established that a woman had a right to control her own reproductive cycle and the government had no business interfering with a privacy right possessed by a couple. Roe v. Wade established the right to an abortion. The same moral compunctions used with abortion were, and still are used by some to oppose any form of artificial birth control. They argued: preventing a life was as serious a moral failure as taking one. Many Catholics, many evangelical and fundamentalist protestants, and some orthodox Muslims are today morally opposed to birth control and believe that the government should ban birth control as it once was in the United States.
Actually it was as late as 1963, that the Supreme Court ruled that States could not make the sale of birth control devices or drugs illegal. In many jurisdictions in the United States, women who do not have insurance and cannot afford birth control, there are state and private organizations, like Planned Parenthood, who will provide them. However, some conservative forces are trying to put Planned Parenthood out of business. A few doctors and nurses who perform abortions and proscribe birth control have been murdered by the fanatics. Almost of the so called “pro life” forces not only oppose abortion but contraception and family planning as well. They tactically tend to concentrate first on abortion, but most also believe that the life and death issues are for them the same, as opposed to most American feelings. The literal prohibiting Biblical injunctions are even more specific about birth control than abortion.
Peter Houston Kostmayer is a Democratic politician who served seven terms in the U.S. House of Representatives from Bucks County, Pennsylvania.
