Here’s what RFK Jr.’s confirmation means for access to abortion

Robert F. Kennedy Jr.’s ascension to the leader of health and human services, the federal agency that houses the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) and Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, problems with the idea that the United States should lead the public health, food and drug policy based on scientific consensus. Many will look at to see how the health of individuals and institutions is doing under his leadership.

Abortion is one of the many health problems that falls within the Purview of Kennedy’s mandate as secretary of HHS. As head of the agency, the positions he occupies will have life and death consequences for millions of pregnant women and for mothers healthcare more generally.

Despite the fact that there is a clear connection between abortion ban and spikes in mothers and infant deaths, Trump administration has taken a hard line on reproductive healthcare from Reinstatement and extension of financing restrictions on grants to foreign non-governmental family planning organizations offering abortion services for promising to ”Defund planned parenthood. “Vice President JD Vance expressed The administration’s obligation to fight for the “unborn” at march for life shortly after accession. And during his confirmation hearings, RFK Jr. said he would fall into accordance with the Trump Administration’s goal.

With that in mind, here are some early steps he had to take.

First, Kennedy will make a rhetorical turn against the health of the fetus over the health of the pregnant person. This will reshape how providers should think of reproductive health care system, given that the conclusion of a pregnancy can directly conflict with this political agenda and the guidance of the former administration.

After June 2022 Dobs ruling overturning ROE v. WADE, The bite’s leader of HHS, Xavier BEERRA, made open statements and produced recommendations to help hospitals protect pregnant people’s health. BEERRA made it clear that the Biden administration would protect reproductive health care, which included increasing access to abortion of medicine and the protection of emergency in emergencies. The administration created reproductions.gov to provide pregnant patients with information, including “Know your rights” material. The message was high and clear: The Biden -Administration supports reproductive health.

The Trump administration, even before Kennedy’s confirmation hearing, had already begun to regret these efforts. During the inauguration, Reproducriverights.gov -Websted was removed (although Theskimm ‘has since brought it back). With an obedient secretary for HHS in place, the administration will change gear. Instead of protecting reproductive health care, it is likely to use HHS’s secretary to give the credibility of the idea that fetal health is similar and sometimes greater than the pregnant person dead or even die in an attempt to save their pregnancy. (Seam Propublica have reportedThese preventable deaths happened already.) This will support a broader movement against fetal personality and against abortion, which could have far-reaching consequences that affect contraception access (since conservative incorrectly argues for some forms of birth control is abortion acids) and in vitro fertilization among other sexuals and Reproductive healthcare. And are likely to be so confusion in other areas of medical treatment delivered to pregnant women including Cancer Care.

Secondly, there will be attacks on personal rights for people seeking abortions. The Law on Health Insurance and Responsibility (HIPAA) protects confidential health information from being revealed without a patient’s consent. Sometimes the patient’s health data is used during criminal case. In return, the Biden-Harris administration created one rule To repeat that reproductive healthcare provides legally considered protected health information and cannot be used for “criminal, civil or administrative investigation or procedure” against people who “seek, sheep, deliver or facilitate reproductive healthcare.” It is likely that the Trump administration will try to abolish these rules that tried to protect pregnant women and providers from punishment for HIPAA.

Third, Kennedy will be able to use the agency to saw doubts of accepted best practice. Since its approval of the FDA, MifePistone, one of the two medications used to induce abortion, has been attacked by anti-abort defenders as unsafe despite large quantities of research and medical practice showing the enormous security and effectiveness of The drug to induce abortion, not only in the United States, but all over the world.

Anti-abort campaign to undermine MifePiston’s use and regulation has been dependent on studies that have been discredited and on anti-abort judges who have cleared the way for groups that challenge the regulation of Mifepriston and Who quotes These studies. Although a prolonged match last year led to Supreme Court Permission of MifePistone access to continue, new legal challenges may raise the possibility that MifePistone will again be caught in legal cross chairs and may not make it through with its current protocol intact.

Since Kennedy oversees the FDA, he could push for further examinations of the medicine, as he is already in doubt about its security. During his confirmation hearing, he said Trump has asked him to “study the security of MifePeistone.” These challenges to the FDA’s regulation of MifePiston often rest on the claim that the drug was not examined enough or that the evidence was defective. Although this has been rounded, Kennedy’s new role allows him to encourage the FDA to revise the regulation of the drug, instill new distrust and urge the agency to bring back more restrictive rules.

Kennedy could play a crucial role in undoing bit-era changes, based on prolonged evidence that made Mifepristone easier to access.

To be sure, all of these efforts to undermine MifePistone will sit with the possibility that Trump’s Justice Department will make it impossible to access MifePistone by re -reading the Victorian era Comstock action To apply to the drug and other materials used for abortion and spontaneous abortion management more generally, which can result in a shutdown of abortion abortions in the country, depending on their interpretation.

Last but not least, Kennedy signaled upset during his confirmation hearing that he did not know how he felt about saving pregnant people’s lives in emergency room when the necessary care was an abortion. When asked if a pregnant woman, in a red state emergency room, should receive an abortion under medical advice, RFK Jr. said he “did not know it.” The question and answer was a reference to EMala, Emergency Treatment and Labor Act, which says a hospital should provide stabilizing care to a patient. HHS is in charge to examine Emala violations, including moments when pregnant people can die, lose organs or become septic due to confusion about whether the intervention constitutes an illegal abortion. The Biden administration was pushing to ensure that doctors knew they were mandated to provide abortion care as stabilizing healthcare. Kennedy’s response suggested that he did not see the need to prioritize the pregnant person’s health over the fetus and does not understand HHS’s role in enforcing federal legislation that protects against the patient’s dumping practice in refusing patients life-saving care care before the implementation of emala.

In short, limiting abortion care undermines reproductive health care. RFK Jr. May say he wants you to be healthy again, but he means unless you are pregnant, in which case you are left to meet illness or death during his HHS.

This is not the first crisis in abortion care under the Trump administration and will not be the last. But like you who have Fought for health care IN pastProponents of reproduction rights must not give up on keeping abortion access central to the national health agenda.