Medical Practices Disqualify Foster Anti Foster Abortions, Inconsistencies Make Him Less Than Credible

If surgeon general nominee Henry W. Foster wasn’t an abortionist, liberals would run from him.

Left-wingers like Doonesbury’s Garry Trudeau mocked President Reagan when he couldn’t remember anything about Iran or Contras. But they’re noticeably mum about Foster’s inability to recall whether he performed one abortion, or less than a dozen, or maybe 39 in his 38-year career as an obstetrician/gynecologist.

Nor do they raise any questions about a 1978 statement Foster made (and now denies, of course) at an ethics advisory board meeting: “I have done a lot of amniocentesis and therapeutic abortions, probably near 700.”

Foster’s lack of candor caused even the left-leaning New York Times to suggest in February that his nomination be withdrawn. It should have been.

Hard-line pro-choicers excuse Foster’s inconsistencies (read lying) by stating simply that abortion is a legal procedure - although one that 58 percent of Americans believe should be outlawed or extremely limited. (However, no one would want Playboy’s Hugh Hefner serving as Clinton’s press secretary - though pornography is legal in this country.)

Hands-on abortion isn’t the only skeleton in this forgetful nominee’s closet. Foster also took part directly or indirectly in several notorious social experiments.

Although he was vice president of a local medical society in Tuskegee, Ala., in 1969, he claims he didn’t know about a government experiment in his community in which more than 400 black men were denied treatment for syphilis. A 1981 book states Foster’s medical society quietly went along with the experiments after being solicited for support by federal officials.

Foster has participated in the questionable practice of sterilizing severely retarded women, tested an abortion drug on dozens of pregnant women and recommended abortions when unborn babies showed evidence of sickle-cell anemia.

Foster isn’t a passive pro-choicer; he has blood on his hands.

Incredibly, President Clinton politicized this token office by picking an abortionist - when more than 99.5 percent of doctors in this country don’t perform abortions.

Maybe Clinton wanted someone who would make Joycelyn Elders look good.

xxxx

The following fields overflowed: SUPCAT = EDITORIAL, COLUMN - From both sides