President Bush has made a truly inappropriate, and bizarre, choice to oversee federal family-planning programs at the Department of Health and Human Services. The new official, Eric Keroack, a gynecologist, works for a Boston-based concern that opposes birth control, except presumably such methods as the rhythm method. That goes for unmarried and married people!

The appointment recalls the appointment of Dr. W. David Hager to the Food and Drug Administration's Reproductive Health Drugs Advisory Committee. Dr. Hager opposes the prescription of contraceptions. Thus, his appointment, like that of Dr. Keroack, was an ideological statement, not a practical public-health one.

The organization whence cometh Dr. Keroack, who is now deputy assistant secretary for population affairs, promotes abstinence or "sexual purity and self-mastery." The group, A Woman's Concern, won't provide information about artificial birth control of any kind. We expect Mr. Bush to name an abortion foe to such jobs, but naming someone who opposes birth control is outrageous, except to a tiny sliver of the population with intense theological views.

The means to plan their pregnancies is women's right, and a societal good. A string of unplanned pregnancies can condemn women to a life of poverty. Dr. Keroack's appointment is a slap in the face of good public policy.