OPINION:
Among the many crucial moral and political issues facing Americans, none is more pressing than the extermination of hundreds of thousands of the unborn every year.
In 2022, with its decision in Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health, the Supreme Court returned the ability to protect life through all nine months of pregnancy to the states, almost half a century after it had taken that authority from them.
The Biden administration’s response was to use any lever of power it could to undermine the states’ authority. Many of those levers of power were pulled by those in the Department of Health and Human Services and its subagencies, such as the Food and Drug Administration, who support abortion access.
Personnel is policy. That is why conservatives and those concerned about the lives of the unborn should oppose the confirmation of Robert F. Kennedy Jr. as HHS secretary.
The FDA sought to advance abortion by significantly reducing the already insufficient protective limitations on the prescribing of abortion drugs. Among others, the FDA no longer requires that such prescriptions follow an in-person visit to a doctor and no longer requires the reporting of adverse health outcomes other than death caused by the drugs.
In-person doctor visits are essential, among other things, to ensure that the pregnancy is not ectopic, since the drugs could trigger hemorrhaging that could kill the mother; that the abortion drugs are being prescribed to the woman who will use them and not someone who will provide them to someone else, potentially a woman in a state where abortion is illegal; and to ensure that the woman is not facing abuse or pressure to have an abortion she does not want.
Finally, the removal of the reporting requirement for adverse events less serious than death is nothing less than willfully avoiding the collection of data that would demonstrate the danger of these drugs, which are now the primary method by which abortions are performed in the United States.
The Department of Health and Human Services has adopted a misinterpretation of a bipartisan Reagan-era law, the Emergency Medical Treatment and Active Labor Act, that if adopted by courts would force hospitals to perform abortions in contravention of state laws.
The department is also withholding Title X funds from Oklahoma after it found that state law prohibited it from complying with HHS’s demand to refer pregnant patients of its state health service to a hotline that would provide information about abortion and other pregnancy options.
Oklahoma is asking the Supreme Court to hear its challenge to this reinterpretation of Title X, a reinterpretation that is all the more galling because it directly violates the Weldon Amendment. The Weldon Amendment, an amendment to Congress’ appropriation of certain federal funding, including Title X, prohibits this sort of discrimination against health care providers that refuse to provide or refer for abortion.
Mr. Kennedy’s record on abortion is not encouraging. As recently as his campaign for president, he has “said he opposed any government restrictions on abortions, ‘even if it’s full term.’” Although he later walked that statement back after pressure from some of his campaign staff, there is no reason to think his off-the-cuff statement supporting the legality of full-term abortions is not his true position.
Even if he was unsure of the issue, that should be enough to disqualify him from leading HHS. Reversing the myriad policies the department has implemented under President Biden to advance abortion will require the new secretary to be fully engaged and committed to life.
The unborn deserve nothing less than zealous, unequivocal advocates for their fundamental right to life in every federal office. That is perhaps nowhere more important than in the office of the HHS secretary, whose authority can and should be used to ensure that fewer babies have their right to life snuffed out.
• Timothy Harper is legal counsel at Advancing American Freedom.
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