As Child Separation Crisis Raged, Now-Disgraced ORR Director Scott Lloyd Focused On His Anti-Abortion Novel
04.22.19 – Scott Lloyd, the former director of Health and Human Services’ (HHS) Office of Refugee Resettlement (ORR), is best known for his role in mismanaging the child separation crisis, but now he’s hoping to be known for something else: young adult fiction.
Last year, POLITICO reported that Lloyd was working on a book about his anti-abortion beliefs. That book has been published as a semi-autobiographical novel about the main character’s exploits of hard partying and heavy drinking during college, when he also participated in hook up culture complete with misogynistic statements about women. Like Lloyd's, the “hero” of the novel’s anti-abortion crusade begins when he finds that his on-again off-again sexual partner, “friend with benefits” is unexpectedly pregnant and makes the decision to have an abortion.
While he was supposed to be focusing on reuniting children in ORR care with their families, Lloyd seemed to prioritize his time elsewhere. He maintained a spreadsheet to track the pregnancies and menstrual cycles of individual young women in his office’s custody, and received weekly “pregnancy notifications,” which he lied about in a family separation hearing earlier this year.
“During one of the greatest humanitarian crises of our time, Scott Lloyd found time to track menstrual cycles and track changes in his personal manuscript, but he couldn’t be bothered to track children in his custody,” said Mary Alice Carter, Executive Director of Equity Forward.
“It’s outrageous that Lloyd took the time to write, edit and publish a book — all while failing to do his taxpayer-funded job. What is Secretary Azar thinking continuing to employ Scott Lloyd at HHS? It’s long past time for him to do the right thing and fire Scott Lloyd.”
Although Lloyd was removed from his position at ORR due to this mishandling of this crisis, HHS Secretary Alex Azar stood by him and simply reassigned him to the department’s Center for Faith and Opportunity Initiatives.
Key quotes and book passages from The Undergraduate by E. Scott Lloyd can be found here. The full history of Scott Lloyd’s obsession with abortion at the expense of refugee care can be found here.
More information on Scott Lloyd can be found at HHS Watch, an extensive library of research maintained by Equity Forward on nearly 50 political appointees at our nation's health department who are hostile to reproductive health care.
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