• 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 complaints and investigations of emergency abortion care denials under the Emergency Medical Treatment and Labor Act.
• We already know that Trump sees HHS as a key component of his work to decimate reproductive freedom. During Trump’s first term, his administration leveraged the HHS to roll back access to reproductive health care, including abortion and contraception.

With an anti-abortion advocate at the helm of HHS, Project 2025 outlines how the agency can systematically decimate access to abortion care and contraception, including by:

• Refusing to accept complaints about denials of emergency abortion care
• Halting investigations into hospitals that unlawfully refuse to provide emergency abortion care
• Undermining the Title X family planning network by forcing out health care professionals who offer abortion and contraception care
• Cutting family planning funding
• Allowing employers to deny birth control coverage
• Effectively banning abortion nationwide by rescinding the FDA’s approval of abortion medication mifepristone, even without the consent of FDA scientists
• Project 2025 directs HHS to change or implement policies that threaten access to emergency abortion care, birth control, assisted fertility treatments like IVF, and suggests monitoring/tracking pregnant people—including if they have an abortion—creating a surveillance state for pregnant people

Read our Project 2025 Deep Dive

• RFK Jr. previously signaled—clearly and unequivocally—his support for a national abortion ban, earning the praise of anti-abortion groups.
• During his presidential run, RFK Jr. repeatedly voiced his hostility toward abortion by saying “every abortion is a tragedy” and that he “is not happy about abortions.” He also previously referred to himself as “pro-life.”
• RFK Jr. selected Nicole Shanahan, a vocal opponent of IVF who said that the assisted fertility treatment was “one of the biggest lies that’s being told about women’s health today,” as his running mate.
• While running for president, he hired Angela Stanton King, an anti-abortion activist, to advise his campaign—including on abortion—leading him to deploy disinformation.
• Anti-abortion groups are lobbying RFK Jr. and he’s “open to them.” In meetings with Republican senators ahead of his confirmation hearing, RFK Jr. has promised to reinstate and expand anti-abortion policies at HHS.
• As Katie Miller, a spokesperson for the Trump-Vance transition, told Fox News, “Mr. Kennedy has every intention of supporting President Trump’s agenda to the fullest extent. This is President Trump’s administration that Robert F. Kennedy has been asked to serve in, and he will carry out the policies Americans overwhelmingly voted for in President Trump’s historic victory.”
• Trump hand-picked his cabinet because he knew his nominees are loyalists who will carry out his dangerous agenda without question and Kennedy is no exception.