RFK Jr. made promises to reenact several positive pro-life policies from the first Trump term, while also picking pro-life deputies to assist him at Health and Human Services
by Matt Lamb
Robert F. Kennedy Jr. reportedly said he believes there are “too many abortions in the world,” while meeting with Republican Senators as he works to build support for his nomination to lead the Department of Health and Human Services.
He also reportedly made promises that the Trump administration would reinstate pro-life policies from its first term and suggested he opposes efforts to include “gender identity” in federal healthcare law and mandate medical professionals provide transgender drugs and surgeries.
“I think there’s too many abortions in the world, let’s just start there,” he reportedly said. The quotes come from Senator Markwayne Mullin (R-OK) who rehashed the conversation to The Daily Wire.
“It’s not that I don’t value life, I value life, I just look at it a little bit different in certain circumstances, what we’ve been through as a family,” Mullin reported RFK Jr. saying.
RFK Jr. has drawn interest from some conservatives for his support for medical freedom when it comes to vaccines, his criticism of Big Pharma, and his pledge to “Make America Healthy Again” by taking on unsafe foods and chronic diseases. At the same time, he has held a variety of positions on abortion, most recently settling on what he called the “emerging consensus” that killing babies should be limited to the first 15 weeks or so. This would only protect about 7 percent of babies from abortion, according to Centers for Disease Control and Prevention data.
Sen. Mullin, recounting his conversation, asked RFK Jr. specifically for his position, saying he had been “all over the map on it.”
President Donald Trump has also signaled he does not see a role for the federal government in enacting legislative protections for preborn life. He also recently reiterated that he supports keeping in place President Joe Biden’s policy of allowing dangerous chemical abortion drugs to be mailed across the country with minimal oversight. The abortion drugs are responsible for about 60 percent of abortions today.
However, he reportedly plans to defund Planned Parenthood, reinstate a ban on taxpayer funding of foreign abortions (the Mexico City Policy), and ensure conscience protections for pro-life medical professionals. Defunding Planned Parenthood has been endorsed by both Vice President-elect JD Vance and Speaker of the House Mike Johnson.
RFK also “supports reinstating the bar on Title X funds going to organizations that promote abortion,” according to Sen. Josh Hawley (R-MO), who laid out the HHS secretary’s promises in a thread on X (formerly Twitter).
“He pledged to reverse the Biden Admin’s Section 1557 rule and also said all of his deputies at HHS would be prolife,” Hawley wrote. Section 1557 is an Obamacare regulation that would force healthcare providers to go along with a gender-confused person’s declared gender, despite it being incongruent with biological sex.
The Missouri Senator also reiterated the comments the nominee gave to Sen. Mullin. “He told me he believes there are far too many abortions in the US and that we cannot be the moral leader of the free world with abortion rates so high.”
Kennedy also reportedly told Mullin:
I’m serving at the will of the President of the United States, and it’s his policies that I will put forth. And so we may not agree on every single issue, but we agree 100 percent, we shouldn’t even be having abortions in this world anyways. But my policies are not what I’m pushing forward, it’s the president’s, and I think the country knows where the president is on that, and so therefore, that’s my position.
Sen. James Lankford (R-OK) said Kennedy “was very clear, President Trump is pro-life, and he’s gonna have this as a pro-life HHS.” He mentioned Trump’s “three exceptions” for rape, incest, and life of the mother, a view Trump mistakenly attributes to President Ronald Reagan.
Pro-lifers, however, stress that each child is deserving of protection from abortion, no matter their circumstances of conception or potential health problems. Furthermore, medical experts have confirmed that direct abortion is never necessary to save the life of a mother.
Some pro-life groups responded positively to the news of Kennedy meeting with Republican senators.
“There is ample room for the incoming administration to advance the pro-life movement incrementally over the next four years!” Americans United for Life CEO John Mize wrote on X.
“The next administration is poised to be the most protective and compassionate for pregnant women and their children in history,” Chelsey Youman, public policy director for Human Life Coalition, wrote on X.
However, commentator David Harsanyi criticized Hawley for supporting Kennedy, saying the HHS nominee “has a record of supporting [abortion] without any restriction until crowning,” alluding to his past opposition to any federal limits on abortion.
