WASHINGTON – President-elect Donald Trump’s decision to tap Robert F. Kennedy Jr. as secretary of the Department of Health and Human Services brings together the unlikeliest of factions: reproductive rights groups and former Vice President Mike Pence, both of whom oppose his appointment.
“I believe that the appointment of RFK Jr. as secretary of HHS is an abrupt departure from our administration’s pro-life record,” Pence said in a statement, “and should be deeply concerning to millions of pro-life Americans who have already supported the Republican Party and our nominees supported for decades.”
Pence, who served with Trump for four years but ended his relationship with him after Trump almost killed him for protecting the peaceful transfer of power to President Joe Biden in 2021, said Kennedy has been a supporter of abortion rights for most of his career.
“RFK Jr. has defended abortion on demand throughout the nine months of pregnancy, supports overturning the Dobbs decision and has called for legislation to codify Roe v Wade,” the former vice president said. “If confirmed, RFK Jr. being 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.
Former Vice President Mike Pence supports Trump’s choice to appoint Robert F. Kennedy Jr. to lead the Department of Health and Human Services does not. Getty Images
But Kennedy also receives no support from reproductive rights groups.
“Trump promised not to ban abortion nationwide, but his Cabinet nominations are bringing Project 2025 to life,” Mini Timmaraju, president and CEO of Reproductive Freedom for All, said in a statement. “RFK Jr. is an unqualified, unqualified extremist who cannot be trusted to protect the health, safety and reproductive freedom of American families.”
Timmaraju noted that Project 2025, the Heritage Foundation’s 920-page far-right policy blueprint for a second Trump administration, directs the Department of Health and Human Services to implement policies that threaten access to emergency abortion care, contraception and assisted fertility treatments. such as 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 said.
If the Senate confirms Kennedy to the post, he would oversee the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, the Food and Drug Administration and the National Institutes of Health.
Kennedy, a conspiracy theorist and vaccine skeptic, has vowed to thwart science to make major health policy changes, such as advising “all U.S. water systems” to remove fluoride from public water because he says it is linked to bone cancer and IQ -loss. .
There is no proof to suggest that the levels of fluoride in drinking water lead to this. Rather, the CDC supports having safe levels of fluoride in water “as an effective, cost-efficient method to prevent tooth decay and improve overall oral health.”
