Commentary: Big Tent Ideas

ERIKA AHERN: RFK Jr. Has Abortion Issues To Tackle At HHS

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In keeping with his campaign promise to shake up the swamp, President-elect Donald Trump has handed the reins of America’s public health institutions to Robert F. Kennedy Jr.

As the secretary of Health and Human Services, the maverick RFK Jr. becomes the effective CEO for over a dozen operating agencies, as well as the marquee divisions of the Centers for Disease Control (CDC), the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) and the National Institutes of Health (NIH).

Some pro-life advocates have raised concerns over RFK Jr.’s past comments in support of abortion (which he later reversed). Others point to his promise to combat the industrialization of humanity as an opportunity for major reforms when it comes to the way America sees reproductive healthcare.

The bottom line is this: For “Make America Healthy Again” (MAHA) to succeed in the four short years ahead of him, RFK Jr. must confront the most fundamental scientific questions: Whose health? Which children will benefit from the MAHA mission?

The industries in his crosshairs are big food, big tech, big government and big pharma. And his mission is to save America’s children.

He intends to use the FDA to crack down on ultra-processed foods, cease water fluoridation, re-visit the CDC’s vaccine schedules and cut the ties between pharmaceutical companies and Capitol Hill.

In his acceptance statement on X, Kennedy vowed: “Together we will clean up corruption, stop the revolving door between industry and government, and return our health agencies to their rich tradition of gold-standard, evidence-based science.”

Indeed.

“Gold-standard, evidence-based science” confirms that human life begins at conception.

MAHA begins in the womb.

Before a child receives an MMR vaccine, ingests her first red dye-40, or dons an N-95 mask, she must survive the womb and childbirth. For that reason alone, MAHA should make a serious study of the ways in which our nation’s pre-born citizens and their mothers are no longer healthy.

The effectiveness of all RFK Jr.’s other efforts lies downstream from grappling with the role of our current “healthcare” in making us sicker at the very beginning of our lives — in our mothers’ wombs.

RFK has an opportunity to demand real data on the effects that artificial hormones, abortion, sterilization, frozen embryo storage and more reproductive health abuses are having on Americans.

Specifically, he should:

• Demand agencies prioritize the research and regulation of In Vitro Fertilization (IVF), including adverse outcomes for children frozen as embryos.
• Compel the FDA to reinstate common-sense safety standards protecting women who take high-risk abortion drugs.
• Require the reporting of non-lethal adverse effects of chemical abortions on women.
• Advocate for a national abortion reporting law (America has none), making it possible at last to compare the health outcomes of pregnancies vs. abortions.
• Have government health agencies stop getting their data on abortion and contraception from the abortion industry (the CDC admits its primary source of information is Planned Parenthood’s Guttmacher Institute).

When it comes to the health of Americans at the very earliest stages of life — and the women carrying those children — RFK Jr. is positioned to make a radical difference. It starts with demanding at last real data with which doctors and policy makers can work.

MAHA starts in the womb.

Erika Ahern is Associate Editor for CatholicVote and the LOOP.

The views and opinions expressed in this commentary are those of the author and do not reflect the official position of the Daily Caller News Foundation.