When asked by a reporter whether the U.S. should fund contraception efforts in Africa through the distribution of condoms to help prevent the spread of AIDS, presidential candidate John McCain had no answer. He claimed he had never thought about it before, and demurred to the expertise of fellow Senator Tom Coburn of Oklahoma, where he said “I look to people like Dr. Coburn.”

Sure, McCain's campaign is crashing and burning, but why on earth would he turn to probably the worst person for sex advice in the entire country? Oklahoma Senator Tom Coburn is one of the worst anti-sex nutballs in national elected office. While he is a doctor, he apparently slept through classes on both medical ethics and how scientific research works. He consistently holds extremist out of the mainstream opinions on everything having to do with sex.

Coburn opposes abortion, even in the case of rape, and has called for the death penalty for abortion doctors. He condemned NBC’s showing of Schindler’s List because it encouraged “irresponsible sexual behavior”. He made the scientifically unsupportable claim that breast implants make you healthier, and then single-handedly blocked the 2006 Breast Cancer and Environmental Research Act. Apparently, the real solution to breast cancer is not research, but for women to get bigger breasts

He is a leading opponent of birth control, and wants to allow health insurance companies to opt out on paying for birth control on moral grounds. He believes in teaching only abstinence and not birth control or safer sex to our youth. He put political pressure on the National Institutes of Health to do a condom study, and then when their reported results showed that condoms were very effective in preventing the spread of disease, he misstated the study and said that condoms don’t prevent the spread of HPV, something the study did not say. He also claimed that the FDA overstates condom protection against disease and cervical cancer. Then he tried to get warning labels put on condoms.

He sponsored a bill to require minors to wait five days and have their parents notified before receiving contraception, which would dramatically reduce access to birth control. He also introduced an amendment to a bill that would prohibit the FDA from testing, researching, developing, or approving any drug that induces an abortion, which is even more restricting when you understand that he considers common birth control methods such as the IUD and Depo-Provero to be forms of abortion. He opposed the FDA’s decision to make Plan B available over the counter, and criticized the FDA’s research.

Coburn is one of the most notorious homophobes on the Hill, who believes the gay agenda is America’s greatest threat and is leading to the destruction of America and is the rationalization for abortion and multiple sex partners. He falsely accused schools in southeast Oklahoma of having so many lesbians that they would only allow one girl at a time into the bathrooms.

There is also serious evidence to indicate that in private practice he sterilized a 20 year old woman against her will and illegally billed Medicaid for the procedure. And most to the point, when Bush appointed him as co-chair of the Presidential Advisory Council on HIV and AIDS, Coburn stated, “I will challenge the national focus on condom use to prevent the spread of HIV.”

This is the guy McCain gets his advice from on HIV and sexual issues? I used to have some respect for McCain, but many of his latest actions have shown that he has completely lost it. This and his comments on his market stroll through Baghdad show that he is completely out of touch with reality.  

Previous Commentaries
 

Return to main menu