Protect Medication Abortion
Anti-abortion extremists are attacking medication abortion. Add your name in support of access to medication abortion.
Press Release
Reproductive Freedom for All Condemns Trump’s Nomination of Robert F. Kennedy Jr. for Secretary of Health and Human Services
For Immediate Release: Thursday, November 14, 2024
Contact: [email protected]
Reproductive Freedom for All Condemns Trump’s Nomination of Robert F. Kennedy Jr. for Secretary of Health and Human Services
Washington, DC — Today, President-elect Donald Trump announced he will nominate Robert F. Kennedy Jr. for Secretary of Health and Human Services (HHS). Kennedy has gone on record supporting a national abortion ban and has spread dangerous disinformation and conspiracy theories.
Reproductive Freedom for All President and CEO Mini Timmaraju released the following statement:
“Trump ran on a promise not to ban abortion nationwide, but his cabinet nominees are Project 2025 come to life. RFK Jr. is an unfit, unqualified extremist who cannot be trusted to protect the health, safety, and reproductive freedom of American families. Anyone who enables these appointments is complicit in the realization of Project 2025 and the further destruction of our rights and freedoms.”
Project 2025, the MAGA plan for a second Trump administration, directs HHS to change or implement policies that threaten access to emergency abortion care, birth control, and assisted fertility treatments like IVF.
The Secretary of HHS oversees the implementation of programs and initiatives impacting the health and well-being of people across our country and has the power to significantly impact access to sexual and reproductive health care. The Secretary also manages essential public health programs like the Title X Family Planning Program and Medicaid, in addition to handling all complaints and investigations of emergency abortion care denials under the Emergency Medical Treatment and Labor Act (EMTALA).
During his first term in office, Trump deployed HHS to decimate access to reproductive health care, including access to abortion and contraception. That includes putting the harmful domestic gag rule in place. This anti-abortion policy decimated the Title X family planning network by forcing many healthcare providers out of the program who provided abortion. The restriction also prohibited Title X providers from referring for abortion care, even when patients requested the information. His administration also finalized a rule rolling back the Affordable Care Act’s (ACA) contraception coverage, vastly expanding the categories of employers that do not have to comply with the contraceptive coverage requirement that guarantees access to birth control without a copay.
###
For over 50 years, Reproductive Freedom for All (formerly NARAL Pro-Choice America) has fought to protect and advance reproductive freedom at the federal and state levels—including access to abortion care, birth control, pregnancy and post-partum care, and paid family leave—for everybody. Reproductive Freedom for All is powered by its more than 4 million members from every state and congressional district in the country, representing the 8 in 10 Americans who support legal abortion.