Abortion foe to lead on family planning

WASHINGTON -- President Bush yesterday appointed a Boston-area gynecologist known for his anti abortion work and advocacy for abstinence programs in Massachusetts to oversee the federal government's family planning efforts, sparking praise from conservatives and criticism from abortion-rights activists.

Dr. Eric James Keroack of Marblehead serves as supervising physician for five crisis-pregnancy centers in Massachusetts that seek to persuade what he calls "abortion-vulnerable women" to go through with their pregnancies.

In his new position as deputy assistant secretary for Health and Human Services, Keroack will be responsible for advising Secretary Michael O. Leavitt "on a wide range of health topics, including adolescent pregnancy, family planning, and other population issues," according to a department job description.

Keroack, reached by e-mail, confirmed his appointment but declined to comment further.

Antiabortion leaders described Keroack as a pioneer in using medical arguments for discouraging women from having abortions and teenagers from having sex.

Raymond Ruddy of Dover, president of Gerard Health Foundation , which has given millions of dollars to antiabortion and abstinence groups, said of Keroack: "He was one of the first doctors ever to really get involved in the medical aspect of some of these pregnancy resource centers. For very, very little pay, he sacrificed a lot to help women do ultrasounds and do what was right in the abortion decision. It's pretty much what he has done all his life."

But local and national Planned Parenthood officials immediately condemned the appointment, saying Keroack has tried to block women from exercising their right to abortion .

"Putting Dr. Keroack in charge of our nation's largest family planning program is dangerous to women's health," said Dianne Luby , president and chief executive officer of Planned Parenthood League of Massachusetts.

Both supporters and detractors say Keroack, 46, has been a trailblazer in using ultrasound images of fetuses to persuade women not to have abortions.

John R. Diggs , a doctor in South Hadley who has known Keroack since they collaborated on a paper five years ago, praised his efforts to make sure women see an image of their fetus before deciding whether to have an abortion .

Opposition to ultrasounds, Diggs said, was driven by a "concern by people who perform abortions that women who see the moving baby won't think it's a clump of cells anymore."

In 2001, Keroack wrote in a letter submitted to the Massachusetts Legislature, "Even Midas lets you look at your old muffler before they advise you to change it." Diggs said that Keroack's new position at HHS -- officially, deputy assistant secretary for population affairs -- would pose challenges because of the very nature of its mission, which he says presupposes "the idea that children are a burden."

"Dr. Keroack is clearly of the view that people are a good thing, not a bad thing," Diggs said.

Keroack is also widely known for promoting abstinence before marriage, and once compared premarital sex to drug use.

A Woman's Concern, the umbrella organization that supports the crisis-pregnancy clinics supervised by Keroack, is also the parent organization for Healthy Futures, the contractor that Governor Mitt Romney has selected to teach abstinence in public schools.

When the American Medical Association recommended against using any "unproven" sex education approach in 2004 -- a reference to abstinence programs -- Keroack criticized the AMA in The Washington Times.

"Abstinence education is the first mechanism that has actually made a positive impact on the devastation caused by the errant sexual education programs of the 1970s and 1980s," he said.

In a 2003 presentation to the International Abstinence Leadership Conference in Las Vegas, Keroack wrote in a PowerPoint item that "PRE-MARITAL SEX is really MODERN GERM WARFARE." The presentation outlined a purported scientific basis for how premarital sex ruins later relationships.

Keroack said teenage sexual activity blunts the brain's ability to develop emotional relationships. Comparing sex to drug use, he said the hormone produced by the brain after orgasm, oxytocin , will eventually diminish a person's ability to form emotional attachments. Keroack said premarital sex can lead to overproduction of oxytocin .

In the 2001 paper for Abstinence Medical Council that he co authored with Diggs, the two doctors concluded: "People who have misused their sexual faculty and become bonded to multiple persons will diminish the power of oxytocin to maintain a permanent bond with an individual. . . . Just as in heroin addiction . . . the person involved will experience 'sex withdrawal' and will need to move on to a . . . new sex playmate."

Scientists involved with research into bonding called Keroack's theories, based on research on prairie voles, a type of rodent, an extreme reading of the data.

Sue Carter, a biologist at the University of Illinois in Chicago, said "extrapolating from an animal model to humans is a leap of faith."

What was clear to even Keroack's supporters yesterday is that his tenure at HHS is bound to be controversial. "We're all happy he's doing what he's doing," Ruddy said. "At the same time, I warned him that he'll be under a microscope. He'll face tremendous pressures in this job."

John Donnelly and Stephanie Siek of the Globe staff contributed to this report. Bender can be reached at bender@globe.com.

(Correction: Because of a reporting error, a Page One story Friday on President Bush's appointment of Boston-area gynecologist Dr. Eric James Keroack to oversee the government's family planning efforts incorrectly identified Keroack as a supervisor of Problem Pregnancy of Worcester. Keroack, who is affiliated with a nonprofit that runs six other crisis-pregnancy centers in Massachusetts, has no official role with the Worcester organization.)

(Correction: Because of a reporting error, a Page One story Friday on President Bush's appointment of Boston-area gynecologist Dr. Eric James Keroack to oversee the government's family planning efforts incorrectly identified Keroack as a supervisor of Problem Pregnancy of Worcester. Keroack, who is affiliated with a nonprofit that runs six other crisis-pregnancy centers in Massachusetts, has no official role with the Worcester organization.)

(Correction: Because of a reporting error, a Page One story Friday on President Bush's appointment of Boston-area gynecologist Dr. Eric James Keroack to oversee the government's family planning efforts incorrectly identified Keroack as a supervisor of Problem Pregnancy of Worcester. Keroack, who is affiliated with a nonprofit that runs six other crisis-pregnancy centers in Massachusetts, has no official role with the Worcester organization.)