Robert F. Kennedy Jr., President Donald Trump’s nominee for Health and Human Services (HHS) Secretary, said during his confirmation hearing on Wednesday that he will support Trump’s pro-life policies and study the safety of the abortion pill.
During the hearing, Sen. James Lankford (R-OK) asked Kennedy how he will handle Title X family planning regulations under Trump. During Trump’s first term, his administration issued a rule that taxpayer funds provided for the Title X family planning grant program may not be used to support abortion in any way. Former President Joe Biden quickly reversed that rule and targeted Lankford’s state of Oklahoma for its refusal to promote abortions while receiving federal funds.
“…The Biden administration cut off funding to the State of Oklahoma for AIDS testing, for breast cancer screenings, and for other areas of poverty healthcare because my state didn’t promote abortion,” Lankford said. “My simple question to you is how are you going to handle Title X on that? I saw how President Biden handled that in the punitive measures that came on my state…”
“I’m going to support President Trump’s policies on Title X. I agree with President Trump that every abortion is a tragedy. I agree with him that we cannot be a moral nation if we have 1.2 million abortions a year,” Kennedy responded. “I agree with him that the states should control abortion. President Trump has told me that he wants to end late-term abortions, and he wants to protect conscious exemptions, and that he wants to end federal funding for abortions here and abroad. That’s title X. I serve at the pleasure of the president — I’m going to implement his policies.”
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Lankford additionally asked Kennedy about his approach to mifepristone, the first pill used in a two-drug medication abortion regimen. Specifically, Lankford noted how the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) stopped requiring the reporting of all complications related to abortion drugs in 2016, with the exception of deaths. He also pointed out how the FDA under Biden allowed abortion pills to be prescribed over telehealth and sent via mail, potentially putting women who have undiagnosed ectopic pregnancies and other complications at risk.
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Lankford asked:
My question to you is, will FDA move to be able to actually give transparency to the American people and to say [mifepristone] is no different than any other drug? [That] we are not going to protect it just because [abortion] is political for some folks? People should know side effects of this drug and there should be reporting.
“It’s against everything we believe in this country that patients or doctors should not be reporting adverse events,” Kennedy replied. “We need to know what adverse events are. We need to understand the safety of every drug — mifepristone and every other drug. President Trump has made it clear to me that this is one of the things he has not taken a position yet on, a detailed position, but he’s made it clear to me that he wants me to look at safety issues, and I’ll ask NIH and FDA to do that.”
Kennedy also backed conscience protections for health care workers who object to performing or facilitating abortions.
“[F]orcing somebody to participate in a medical procedure as a provider that they believe is murder does not make any sense to me,” he said. “We need to welcome diversity in this country. We need to respect diversity, and we need to respect each other when we have different opinions and not force our opinions on other people.”
Katherine Hamilton is a political reporter for Breitbart News. You can follow her on X @thekat_hamilton.
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