WASHINGTON — The recent nomination of Robert F. Kennedy Jr. to President-elect Donald Trump’s Cabinet sparked immediate controversy within the anti-abortion community. Mike Pence, Trump’s former vice president, labeled Kennedy as “the most pro-abortion Republican appointed secretary of HHS in modern history.” The founder of Susan B. Anthony Pro-Life America expressed her “concerns.”
However, a week later, the tone among leading anti-abortion activists and organizations has shifted. Instead of trying to block the nomination, they are now focusing on persuading Kennedy to change his stance on abortion.
Several anti-abortion advocates have recently reached out to Kennedy, encouraging him to rethink his views on reproductive rights and supplying him with anti-abortion arguments. According to Politico, a group of abortion opponents have privately lobbied Kennedy. Chad Connelly, CEO of Faith Wins, confirmed that his organization has done the same. “I think you’re going to see a real deep effort by a lot of the pro-life groups to get in front of him, to make sure he’s got all the facts,” Connelly stated.
For these anti-abortion advocates, Kennedy’s fluctuating positions on abortion could be seen as a potential advantage. “I find hope in the fact that Kennedy has been moved by the truth in the past,” wrote Lila Rose, the founder of Live Action, in a blog post.
Kennedy, who was a Democrat for most of his life before leaving the party last year, identifies as “pro-choice,” although his statements on abortion policy have been inconsistent. During his 2024 presidential campaign, Kennedy expressed support for a federal ban on abortion after 15 weeks of pregnancy, but his campaign later retracted the statement, claiming he ”misunderstood” the question.
In an interview with the Deseret News in October 2023, Kennedy, a Catholic, stated he would not support any federal ban on abortions. “My stance is that every abortion is a tragedy,” he said. “But I’ve spent my life advocating for bodily autonomy and bodily independence. And I don’t think the government is the right entity to be telling women what they should be doing with their bodies.”
He added that the government should “spend an equivalent amount of energy” ensuring that mothers who want to carry their babies to term “have the resources to do that.”
Kennedy declined an interview for this story.
In the post-Dobbs political landscape, pro-life activists find themselves navigating uncharted territory. In the 2024 election, Trump won four states — Arizona, Missouri, Montana, and Nevada — where voters also approved abortion rights measures. Trump’s stance on abortion during the race was ambiguous: he withdrew his previous support for a federal ban, instead advocating for each state’s right to determine legality. Late in the campaign, Trump pledged his administration would “be great for women and their reproductive rights.”
This stance marked a departure from his previous position, according to Ryan Burge, an associate professor of political science at Eastern Illinois University. In 2016, Trump promised he would overturn Roe; after his Supreme Court appointees did so, “he tacked back to the middle, and it actually got him more votes in 2024,” Burge said during a panel event hosted by Georgetown University’s Initiative on Catholic Social Thought and Public Life on November 12.
“If anything, 2024 convinced me the pro-life movement is probably weaker today than it was at any point in the last 50 years,” Burge added.
Election a ‘wake-up call’ for anti-abortion movement
Gayle Ruzicka, president of the Utah Eagle Forum, described the election as a “wake-up call” for the anti-abortion movement. “People got kind of lazy when Roe was overturned,” she said. “They thought all was well now. And when these amendments were put up in their states, they weren’t ready.”
While the legality of abortion is left up to states, the federal government — through the Department of Health and Human Services — still oversees abortion-related standards, like regulations on chemical abortions, funding for the Teen Pregnancy Prevention Program, and abortion reporting requirements in relation to Medicaid.
Ruzicka expressed concern about the prospect of Kennedy leading the agency. “I have great concerns — great, great concerns,” she said. “It’s tragic not to have someone that’s not pro-life to be the head of an agency that has to do with the health and welfare of the people.”
Recently, anti-abortion groups have put forward two major demands from Kennedy, according to reports from CNN and Politico: appointing pro-life advocates to senior Department of Health and Human Services positions, and reinstating anti-abortion policies from Trump’s first term.
However, anti-abortion activists also believe that if they can get Kennedy’s attention, they can persuade him to further modify his stance on abortion. Rose wrote that Kennedy “needs to be shown the full truth” about abortion. Connelly, whose organization trains pastors to engage in the political process, said his group has been “intentional about reaching out to (Kennedy), through the campaign.” He expects Kennedy to be receptive to their requests — and attributes Kennedy’s perceived opposition to the anti-abortion cause to a lack of knowledge.
“He probably doesn’t know about the freedom of conscience stuff,” Connelly said. “He probably doesn’t know about the abortion pills coming in the mail and violating state and federal law, and things like that.”
Ultimately, anti-abortion leaders hope that it will be Trump, not Kennedy, who makes the final decisions. Activists hope to see a return to Trump-era standards by restricting access to abortion pills and preventing taxpayer dollars from funding abortion procedures.
“President Trump’s first-term pro-life accomplishments are the baseline for his second term,” Marjorie Dannenfelser, president of Susan B. Anthony Pro-Life America, told U.S. News & World Report.
In a memo sent to Trump’s transition team, F. Brent Leatherwood, president of the Ethics & Religious Liberty Commission of the Southern Baptist Convention, urged Trump “to, at a minimum, swiftly reverse these changes made by the Biden administration.”
Disagree – Efforts should be focused on defeating harmful ideologies, not persuading someone who supports them.
Disagree – Engaging with his harmful ideas only legitimizes and emboldens them.
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