Warning: the Surgeon General may be good for your health - C. Everett Koop reports on AIDS

Washington Monthly, March, 1987 by Paul Glastris

The surgeon general's post carries littlestatutory authority. Koop would be largely held on a leash by his superior, the cautious, conservative assistant secretary of health, Dr. Edward N. Brandt Jr. The sharp-eyed in Washington saw this as an early sign of the new administration's strategy of placating the far right while steering a more moderate course on social issues. But Democrats, already panicked over the prospect of Kesse Helms loose in a Republican-controlled Senate and an anti-abortion president in the White House, were not relieved. The surgeon general's office carried the weight of medical authority, and they feared C. Everett Koop would use that position to lead a crusade against abortion.

The new Republican Senate, everyone knew,would almost surely support Koop's nomination. A small problem, however, stood in the way. Being a few months past his 64th birthday, Koop was technically several months too old for the job. Jesse Helms tried to remove this potential snag with an amendment changing the age restriction, which he attached to legislation on credit cards already approved by the House. The Senate approved the change after Helms misinformed them that the House had no objections. His Senate approved that the House had no objections. His effort to bypass the House backfired, however, when Speaker Tip O'Neill, angry at the slight and sensing a prime opportunity to embarrass the administration, used an obscure parliamentary rule to send the credit card bill to the House health subcommittee, chaired by liberal pro-choicer Rep. Henry Waxaman.

Republicans on the subcommittee tried to limitthe discussion to the age issue; Waxman and the Democrats, however, proceeded to conduct a de facto confirmation hearing. Koop, with strong advice from his superiors, refused to testify, on the grounds that the House was usurping a Senate responsibility. So Koop's writings and past statements were allowed to speak for him. At a right-to-life seminar in 1979, for example, Koop had referred to the "women's lib movement" and the "gay pride movement" as propelling "anti-family trends," comments women's and gay rights group pointed to as evidence Koop would discriminate against them and decimate abortion-related medical programs. In an article used by Waxman to show Koop's intolerance, the surgeon had written, "Sadly, most mainline denominations have made pro-abortion statements illustrating their superficial theology, lack of morality, and insensitivity to the eventual reward for their own depravity."

The document that spurred liberals to nicknamethe surgeon "Dr. Kook" was a 1979 commencement address in which Koop pretended it was 1999. "Secular Humanism" had become the official state anti-religion; "Doctrine Squads" snooped on people and hauled them off to be punished for "speaking of the Lord"; rampant infanticide had resulted in a generation of young people who were "perfect speciments-no defects, no eyeglasses...[and] a preponderance of boys"; talk of "death with dignity" and "living wills" in the seventies had been "the thin wedge" that cracked open American morality and led to compulsory euthanasia for the old and infirm; something called the "Rockhead Foundation" supported the culturing of "100,000 homosexual and lesbian test-tube babies to give the gay movement more political clout."