WASHINGTON – President-elect Donald Trump’s determination to faucet Robert F. Kennedy Jr. for secretary of the Division of Health and Human Companies is uniting probably the most unlikely of factions: reproductive rights teams and former Vice President Mike Pence, each of whom oppose his nomination.
“I believe the nomination of RFK Jr. to serve as Secretary of HHS is an abrupt departure from the pro-life record of our administration,” Pence mentioned in an announcement, “and should be deeply concerning to millions of Pro-Life Americans who have supported the Republican Party and our nominees for decades.”
Pence, who served with Trump for 4 years however ended his relationship with him after Trump almost obtained him killed for defending the peaceable transition of energy to President Joe Biden in 2021, mentioned Kennedy has been an abortion rights supporter for many of his profession.
“RFK Jr. has defended abortion on demand during all nine months of pregnancy, supports overturning the Dobbs decision and has called for legislation to codify Roe v Wade,” the previous vp mentioned. “If confirmed, RFK, Jr. would be the most pro-abortion Republican appointed secretary of HHS in modern history.”
“On behalf of tens of millions of pro-life Americans, I respectfully urge Senate Republicans to reject this nomination and give the American people a leader who will respect the sanctity of life as secretary of Health and Human Services,” Pence added.
However Kennedy doesn’t have help from reproductive rights teams both.
“Trump ran on a promise not to ban abortion nationwide, but his cabinet nominees are Project 2025 come to life,” Mini Timmaraju, president and CEO of Reproductive Freedom for All, mentioned in an announcement. “RFK Jr. is an unfit, unqualified extremist who cannot be trusted to protect the health, safety, and reproductive freedom of American families.”
Timmaraju famous that Venture 2025, the Heritage Basis’s 920-page far-right coverage blueprint for a second Trump administration, directs the Division of Health and Human Companies to place in place insurance policies that threaten entry to emergency abortion care, contraception and assisted fertility therapies like in vitro fertilization.
“Anyone who enables these appointments is complicit in the realization of Project 2025 and the further destruction of our rights and freedoms,” Timmaraju mentioned.
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If the Senate confirms Kennedy for this submit, he would oversee the Facilities for Illness Management and Prevention, the Meals and Drug Administration and the Nationwide Institutes of Health.
Kennedy, a conspiracy theorist and vaccine skeptic, has pledged to buck science to make main well being coverage modifications, like advising “all U.S. water systems” to take away fluoride from public water as a result of, in accordance with him, it’s linked to bone most cancers and IQ loss.
There may be no proof to counsel that the degrees of fluoride in ingesting water result in this. On the contrary, the CDC helps having protected ranges of fluoride in water “as an effective, cost-efficient method for preventing tooth decay and improving overall oral health.”
