Two conservative teams opposing abortion rights introduced Friday they assist President-elect Donald Trump’s decide of Robert F. Kennedy Jr. to go the Division of Well being and Human Companies, after former Vice President Mike Pence criticized the choice over abortion considerations.
If confirmed to the place, Kennedy would have sweeping authority over a lot of companies that would straight have an effect on entry to abortion nationwide, together with the Meals and Drug Administration and the Facilities for Medicare and Medicaid Companies.
In a put up Friday, Pence criticized Kennedy’s choice as teeing up “essentially the most pro-abortion Republican appointed secretary of HHS in fashionable historical past.”
“On behalf of tens of tens of millions of pro-life Individuals, I respectfully urge Senate Republicans to reject this nomination and provides the American individuals a pacesetter who will respect the sanctity of life,” Pence stated in a assertion revealed by the group Advancing American Freedom, calling the selection “deeply regarding to tens of millions of pro-life Individuals.”
A few of Trump’s allies have dismissed Pence’s objection, arguing that there is no such thing as a cause to imagine that Kennedy would buck the platform hammered out by Republicans over the summer time that largely deferred the problem to the states.
“RFK Jr. goes to serve on the pleasure of the president. And the president has been very clear that his coverage is that there is no federal position in abortion,” Terry Schilling, head of the American Rules Venture, informed CBS Information.
Schilling’s political motion committee payments itself as “the one nationwide pro-family group” straight participating in elections on a slate of points together with opposition to abortion and gender-affirming care. He stated they spent $18 million in campaigns this 12 months and likewise plan to work to assist Kennedy’s nomination.
He pointed to different areas the place Kennedy’s “Make America Wholesome Once more” agenda would possibly discover frequent floor with conservatives, citing Kennedy’s previous stances questioning puberty blockers and other forms of hormone remedy for transgender minors.
“Trump selected him due to his Make America Wholesome Once more agenda. And it is very clear there are a number of issues in our nation, and I feel RFK Jr. is the very best suited individual to resolve that,” Schilling stated.
One other main activist group, Susan B. Anthony Professional-Life America, additionally voiced concern over the Kennedy decide.
“There is no query that we want a pro-life HHS secretary, and naturally, now we have considerations about Robert F. Kennedy Jr.,” Marjorie Dannenfelser, the group’s president, stated in a press release.
However no matter who’s HHS secretary, Dannenfelser additionally stated that they believed “baseline insurance policies” set by Trump’s first time period would return.
An individual near the president-elect’s transition stated didn’t suppose the abortion problem would pose an precise hurdle to Kennedy’s affirmation, and stated they have been unsurprised that Pence was making the argument in opposition to Kennedy.
Trump expressed assist for Kennedy’s “Make America Wholesome Once more” platform throughout the marketing campaign, and supplied to let him “go wild on well being” within the new administration.
“Do no matter you need. You simply go forward. Work on pesticides, work on making ladies’s well being. He is so into ladies’s well being, and he is actually unbelievable. It is such a ardour,” Trump stated of Kennedy on Nov. 4.
In a press release, the group Individuals United for Life informed CBS Information that they have been “optimistic about working with RFK Jr. to appropriate the wrongs of the Biden/Harris administration.”
However additionally they appeared to acknowledge his views weren’t totally in alignment.
“Like many newcomers to the conservative pro-life motion, Robert F. Kennedy Jr. wants additional schooling on the fact of abortion and its dangerous results,” John Mize, the group’s CEO, informed CBS Information in a press release.
Mize pointed to Kennedy’s feedback on the Iowa State Honest in August, during which he urged he would assist a federal ban on abortion. Kennedy’s marketing campaign later walked that again — one in all a number of adjustments Kennedy made to his shifting place on abortion throughout his longshot presidential bid.
Earlier than dropping out, Kennedy posted in June that he backed “the rising consensus that abortion ought to be unrestricted up till a sure level,” whereas additionally calling for insurance policies that would “cut back extra abortions in America by alternative than by drive.”
There are methods that Kennedy might go additional to cement his assist amongst anti-abortion activists, Mize stated.
As one “massive sign to the motion,” Mize urged, Kennedy might assist reinstating the FDA’s restrictions requiring in-person prescribing of the remedy abortion capsule mifepristone. Greater than 60% of abortions within the U.S. in 2023 concerned use of the tablets, and lots of prescriptions at the moment are obtained through telehealth.
