Susan Orr

Susan Orr headed the United States Children's Bureau, a federal agency organized under the United States Department of Health and Human Services' Administration for Children and Families, Administration for Children and Families, as Associate Commissioner.

In October 2007, the Bush administration appointed Orr to be acting head of the Office of Population Affairs, a post whose responsibilities include U.S. contraception programs. Orr's appointment became controversial because, according to critics, she has been critical of contraception in the past. She subsequently resigned in May 2008.

Career Orr graduated from the University of Dallas with a degree in politics and received master's and Ph.D degrees in government from Claremont Graduate School.

She was a high school principal and adjunct professor at both American University and Regent University.

In 1995, Orr wrote Jerusalem and Athens, which examined Leo Strauss's ideas concerning the competition between reason and revelation arguing that if Strauss preferred one over the other, it would be revelation.

Orr served at the Administration on Children, Youth and Families from 1992 to 1998 during Bill Clinton's presidency as a special assistant to the commissioner and a child welfare program specialist at the National Center on Child Abuse and Neglect. Prior to 2001, she was a director of the Center for Social Policy at the Reason Public Policy Institute

From 2001 to 2007, Orr headed the United States Children's Bureau, a federal agency organized under the United States Department of Health and Human Services' Administration for Children and Families, as Associate Commissioner. ), STD and HIV education and testing, counseling and breast and cervical cancer screenings. Additionally, the office grants $30.7 million to promote sexual abstinence among adolescents and provide health care and other services to pregnant and parenting adolescents. The position did not require Senate confirmation.

Reaction to the appointment Several groups reacted to Orr's 2001 comment while at the Family Research Council concerning the Bush administration's proposal to stop requiring federal employees health plans to cover five types of birth control: "We're quite pleased, because fertility is not a disease. It's not a medical necessity that you have it." The proposal was overturned by Congress. The president of a family planning association said, "We have another appointment that just truly politicizes family planning", referring to the previous appointment to the Office of Population Affairs, Eric Keroack, a physician who worked at a Christian pregnancy-counseling organization opposed to the use of birth control.

In support of the appointment, an HHS spokesperson said Orr's "breadth of programmatic and managerial experience makes her highly qualified to serve as acting director."

Public health positions

Child protection In 1999, while associated with the Reason Public Policy Institute, Orr published a series of endorsements for reforming child protection efforts. She recommended narrowing the definition of what is child abuse and neglect by restricting it to assault and serious neglect arguing that Child Protective Services (CPS) are "intruding into too many families' lives unnecessarily." She advocated moving investigations from CPS to police departments. She argued against helping the family "to attempt to repair or heal". Instead, she supported treating incidents only as a criminal matter. She called for the repeal of mandatory reporting requirements which require people who work with children to report suspicions of child abuse. She argued these laws encourage unnecessary reporting and discouraged neighbors from directly helping the troubled family. In the end, CPS would be involved only with voluntary services such as parenting advice and, further, should be privatized.

Divorce In a 2000 article in Washington Watch, a publication for the Family Research Council titled Real Women Stay Married, Orr argued that the majority of divorces are caused by women and called for them to recognize that only God can fulfill their lives.

Abortion In 2001, Orr hailed the Mexico City Policy that restricts non-governmental organizations who receive American tax dollars from providing or promoting abortion services. She was against approval of the abortifacient RU-486.

Publications Child Protection at a Crossroads, Policy Study (part 3), October 1, 1999 Jerusalem and Athens: Reason and Revelation in the Works of Leo Strauss by Susan Orr. Lanham, MD.: Rowman and Littlefield, 1995.