Health and Human Services Sec. Robert Kennedy Jr will do absolutely anything to keep you safe from the menace of Red Dye No. 3 but nothing to save a single life from chemical abortions or those ghouls at Planned Parenthood.
It’s not merely that HHS has done nothing to roll back Biden-era rules governing mifepristone — or rather, lack of rules, including the ability to purchase it via mail. In May, the administration opposed red states that had brought a lawsuit attempting to restrict the sale of abortion drugs.
TRUMP’S MISSED OPPORTUNITY ON HOUSING AFFORDABILITY
A few months later, despite news that mifepristone is far more dangerous than previously thought, the FDA approved another generic version of the drug. Today, somewhere around 65% of abortions in the United States are done by chemical means.
Since becoming the head of the HHS, Kennedy has circumvented normal scientific review in his efforts to champion astounding quackery. It took him mere months, for instance, to decide that mRNA technology had no future. And yet, when it comes to the safety concerns regarding abortion drugs, all he’s done is slow-walk an FDA review.
Maybe if someone told RFK Jr. they used seed oil in mifepristone, we would see the process speed up.
RFK Jr. isn’t alone. The administration’s promise to defund Planned Parenthood didn’t even last a year, apparently. Republicans temporarily cut subsidies to Planned Parenthood in their tax bill last summer. At the same time, the Trump administration, which has never hesitated to exert executive power, pulled Title X grants for abortion services and pills.
Politico reports this week that the Department of Health and Human Services had reinstated those 20 “family planning” grants worth nearly $66 million. In return, the ACLU dropped its pending lawsuit against the Trump administration filed for an abortion-rights group.
Every taxpayer dollar sent to Planned Parenthood is fungible and subsidizes abortions, which ignores the Hyde Amendment’s ban on federal funds paying for elective abortions. A couple of weeks ago, President Donald Trump asked House Republicans to be more “flexible” on the matter.
When was the last time abortion-rights advocates were flexible about anything? The Hyde Amendment was passed in 1976, and it has been renewed every year since. The law had widespread support for decades. The Supreme Court has repeatedly upheld it. And yet Hyde is constantly being treated as a suggestion.
Obamacare, despite promises from Democrats when it passed, circumvents the law by funding insurance plans that cover elective abortions. In numerous left-leaning states, every insurance plan in those bogus ACA “marketplaces” covered abortions.
Republicans have already indicated they are going to extend Obamacare subsidies in those fabricated “exchanges.” This is the issue that triggered Trump’s “flexible” comment.
Anti-abortion social conservatives have every reason to give the president props for nominating Supreme Court justices who overturned the unconstitutional Roe v. Wade decision. It’s always been clear, however, that Trump isn’t particularly anti-abortion or genuinely invested in social conservative causes. Perhaps he believes the Dobbs decision resolved the abortion issue. Perhaps he doesn’t believe support from anti-abortioners matters very much anymore. Perhaps he’s allowed lifelong abortion supporter RFK Jr. to take the lead.
THE LEFT’S SILENCE ON IRAN ISN’T HYPOCRISY, IT’S CONSISTENCY
Now, it’s true that both sides overestimate the importance of abortion. The overturning of Roe was a seismic event in D.C. but had a negligible effect on elections, despite hysterical warnings from legacy media that Dobbs would sink the GOP. It’s also true that anti-abortioners are the type of people who disproportionately engage in party activism before midterm elections. It’s going to be difficult enough to save the Hyde Amendment once Democrats take back power, so one wonders how those activists will feel about Republicans preemptively weakening the most basic legal protection of conscience.
Because right now, it’s not that the administration has failed to move forward. The problem is that it’s moving backward.