Editorial

If only the words our government leaders used were true. The conservative wing of the Republican Party preaches small government and state and individual rights, but it only follows its own advice about half the time.

In matters of preventing pollution and other abuses by corporations, the government is only too happy to step aside. Government oversight is a bad idea if the matter in question involves whether a coal-fired power plant can continue to emit toxins into the atmosphere.

Anything involving climate change gets shelved, not effective action.

President Bush has nominated Supreme Court judges whose track records suggest they will look favorably on dismantling the Environmental Protection Act in the name of states' rights. And the government is pleased to ensure that companies that manufacture harmful products are protected from lawsuits.

But when the matter involves denying a person's rights to do something besides bear arms, the government is only too happy to intervene.

The government, for example, wants to say whether gays can marry. It wants to turn back states' rights when Oregon citizens repeatedly voted to allow physician-assisted suicide.

The latest example is the Food and Drug Administration's decision to ban nonprescription sales of emergency contraception.

Essentially a high-strength version of the birth control pill widely used by women worldwide, emergency contraception prevents a viable pregnancy in about eight of nine cases if taken within 72 hours of unprotected sex.

Speed is of the essence, and forcing a woman to first get a doctor's appointment and then find a dispensing pharmacy within the critical hours leads to unwanted pregnancies that can be avoided before the egg ever even attaches to the woman's body.

The federal government supports states' rights when the state wishes to pass a law allowing a pharmacist to refuse to dispense the "morning-after pill." But the FDA ignored its own regulations, policy, practice and scientific finding to maintain federal control of emergency contraception when the company selling the drug wants to make it available without a prescription.

Why? Because the pill is tantamount to an abortion if you believe that human life begins at conception and that any life, even a just-fertilized egg, is deserving of constitutional protection, which is to say, government control.

Now, that belief is held by only a tiny portion of the religious right, but it's still driving public policy to infringe on the individual rights of the women involved. The vast majority of Americans have a more moderate belief on abortion, but they don't have the president's ear.

Need another example of how the government's words don't mean what they say?

In 2004, the internal auditing arm of Congress changed its name from the General Accounting Office to the Government Accountability Office. Conservatives in particular were supportive of the change in emphasis: Now the GAO was going to hold Big Government accountable.

But when the GAO finds that right-wing fringe politics, not good public policy, are increasing government intrusion in women's lives, Health and Human Services Secretary Mike Leavitt wasn't even available for comment, let alone to be held accountable for his department's actions.

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