Republican senators are worried about Robert F. Kennedy Jr.’s nomination to join President-elect Donald Trump’s Cabinet. Among their top concerns? His pro-choice record.
Some senators who spoke to The Dispatch indicated they will take into account Kennedy’s views on abortion as they decide whether to confirm his nomination to lead the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS). Among other responsibilities, HHS oversees the federal family planning program, including measures that withhold funding for states that refuse to give women information about abortions, and the Federal Drug Administration’s regulation of access to abortion pills.
Critics have voiced their objections to Kennedy’s nomination on several bases. Foremost among them are his past claims that vaccines cause autism, and he has espoused a number of dubious health-related theories. His record of support for abortion rights is yet another hazard that could be a barrier to his confirmation.
“There’s lot of questions that he needs to be asked on that,” Sen. James Lankford of Oklahoma told The Dispatch. “It’s entirely appropriate when we walk through the nomination process. I’ll have the opportunity to be able to ask him. The Trump administration was very solid, and HHS was a major part of that during the first Trump administration. I would expect that as a minimum standard for what would happen in a second Trump administration.”
Other senators, such as Sen. Chuck Grassley of Iowa, said they wouldn’t form an opinion before the confirmation process, which will occur under a new GOP-majority Senate and see Kennedy testify before the Committee on Health, Education, Labor, and Pensions (HELP).
“I can’t be concerned about anything because they haven’t had the hearing yet,” he told The Dispatch. “And I generally—I hope almost unanimously—don’t try to make a judgment until I hear what the committee’s done.”
Before dropping his presidential bid and endorsing Trump, Kennedy’s views on abortion varied and sometimes contradicted his campaign’s official positions. His campaign website indicated that he supports codifying Roe v. Wade, but in August 2023, he said he would sign a federal ban on abortion after 15 weeks or 21 weeks before his campaign backtracked. “Today, Mr. Kennedy misunderstood a question posed to him by a NBC reporter in a crowded, noisy exhibit hall at the Iowa State Fair,” his campaign said at the time. “Mr. Kennedy’s position on abortion is that it is always the woman’s right to choose. He does not support legislation banning abortion.”
In a May 2019 podcast episode, Kennedy said he believed abortion should be legal “even if it’s full term.” Days later, he posted on X that he had rethought his position and called “purely ‘elective’” cases of late-term abortion “very upsetting,” adding that “once the baby is viable outside the womb, it should have rights and it deserves society’s protection.” Additionally, his campaign told the Washington Post he supports the FDA’s approval of mifepristone, a pill that induces abortion early in a pregnancy. Use of such types of medication makes up more than 60 percent of abortions nationwide.
Kennedy’s support for abortion has alarmed some in the pro-life movement. Most notably, former Vice President Mike Pence urged Senate Republicans not to confirm him, calling his HHS nomination “an abrupt departure from the pro-life record of our administration.”
But some Republican senators argued that fears Kennedy would bring his own opinions on abortion were unfounded. To them, Kennedy would be primarily serving at Trump’s pleasure and carry out the incoming president’s orders.
“I assume that RFK at HHS will take the same positions that the president took in his first administration in terms of supporting life in the various relevant regulatory ways,” Sen. Josh Hawley of Missouri told The Dispatch. “Cabinet secretary is not an exercise in individuality. You’re serving a principal, which, in this case, the principal is the president, obviously, and Donald Trump has a long track record from his first term in office at HHS.”
Sen. John Hoeven of North Dakota gave a similar response.
“Obviously, I’m pro-life, and so that is a concern,” Hoeven said of Kennedy’s pro-abortion leanings. “But I think he’s in an administration that is pro-life, and I think the administration is going to take steps to make sure that life is protected. The president obviously has said it’s up to the states, but he’s also indicated that he’s pro-life, and so I think that’s something the administration is going to keep an eye on.”
Sen. Lindsey Graham of South Carolina, who has disagreed with Trump’s assertion that restricting abortion is exclusively a state issue, was more direct. “I want to see what he has to say about abortion,” he told The Dispatch. “That will matter a lot to me.”
HELP Committee member Sen. Tommy Tuberville, who last year blocked hundreds of military promotions in an attempt to force Democrats to put forth a bill overturning a Pentagon abortion policy, said he had not heard much about Kennedy’s abortion record.
“We’ll talk about it during the committee hearings, and he’ll come by and see me, being that I’m on the committee. We just got to find out where he’s at. I’ve heard a lot about food. I’ve heard a lot about vaccines. I hadn’t heard a lot about abortion,” Tuberville said.
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