WASHINGTON (OSV News) – In a pair of January confirmation hearings, senators considered President Donald Trump's nomination of Robert F. Kennedy Jr. for secretary of Health and Human Services.
It has been a contentious confirmation battle for Kennedy, a Catholic and advocate for what he argues are healthier alternatives to processed foods, who is also known as a vaccine critic and calls himself "pro-choice" on abortion.
Kennedy broke from his storied Democratic and Catholic political family to run for president before suspending his bid to endorse Trump, and has been among the president's more controversial Cabinet-level nominations. This is in part due to Kennedy's previous claims about vaccines, including his suggestion they are linked to autism, which studies have consistently debunked, and his call to remove fluoride from drinking water.
Kennedy has also been an advocate for abortion. He supported and then walked back his position on a 15-week ban during his failed bid for the presidency.
In hearings before the Senate Finance Committee on Jan. 29 and the Senate Committee on Health, Education, Labor and Pensions on Jan. 30, senators pressed Kennedy on those topics.
"My advocacy has often disturbed the status quo by asking uncomfortable questions, and I'm not going to apologize for that," Kennedy said in his opening statement to the Health Committee.
His nomination prompted differing responses from abortion opponents. The conservative Heritage Foundation launched an ad campaign in support of his nomination, while Advancing American Freedom, a public policy advocacy organization founded by former Vice President Mike Pence, ran ads urging the Senate to reject him.
In its ad campaign, the Heritage Foundation called Kennedy "fearless" for taking on "big corporations and big government" and argued he is ready to work with Trump "to take on special interests, reform a broken system, and make America healthy again."
Tim Chapman, president of Advancing American Freedom, told OSV News in an interview the conservative group is uncomfortable with "a lifelong advocate for the pro-abortion side" in the nation's top health post.
"It's really important to think: 'What is the objective of the pro-life community?'" Chapman said. "Clearly, the objective of the pro-life community is to minimize the number of abortions to save unborn lives. OK, that is the objective. And I am not confident in any way, shape or form that a Kennedy-run HHS would be a force towards that goal."
He also stated that Kennedy has been on "the fringe of some very strange conspiracy theories." He argued "millions of Americans, pro-lifers and other types of conservatives" who voted for Trump did so to rebuke former President Joe Biden and his progressive allies.
"And now you're putting somebody who's more liberal than Biden at the top of HHS," he said.
But Marjorie Dannenfelser, president of Susan B. Anthony Pro-Life America, said in a Jan. 30 statement that her pro-life advocacy group is "encouraged by Robert F. Kennedy Jr.'s confirmation hearings."
"When Kennedy was first nominated, we immediately voiced concern and the need for assurances given his previous positions on abortion," Dannenfelser said. "It is important that President Trump, Kennedy, and the GOP Senate took these concerns seriously and that public commitments were made."
Dannenfelser said SBA will not "score Kennedy's nomination in committee or on the Senate floor," meaning they will not include senators' votes on the issue in their rankings of pro-life lawmakers.
But debate over Kennedy's true views on abortion was the subject of much discussion from senators in both parties and in both hearings. During the finance committee hearing, Sen. Maggie Hassan, D-N.H., said she thought it was "really great that my Republican colleagues are so open to voting for a pro-choice HHS secretary."
Conversely, during the health committee hearing, Sen. Tim Scott, R-S.C., pushed Kennedy to commit to hire "people who are pro-life" if he were confirmed to the Cabinet post. Scott pressed Kennedy several times before he got an affirmative verbal commitment.
Kennedy argued he views every abortion as a "tragedy" and said, "I'm going to implement President Trump's policies" on the issue.
In another notable exchange, Sen. Bill Cassidy, R-La., a physician and chair of the Senate Committee on Health, Education, Labor and Pensions, who is seen as a key swing vote on whether Kennedy is ultimately confirmed, admitted he was "struggling" with Kennedy's nomination.
Earlier in the hearing, Cassidy urged Kennedy several times to reject claims that vaccines cause conditions such as autism, a widely debunked theory. Kennedy declined to do so directly, but sought to cast himself as "pro-safety" rather than "anti-vaccine."
But Cassidy appeared troubled by Kennedy's refusal to acknowledge in the hearing there is no credible evidence linking autism to vaccines.
"If there's any false note, any undermining of a mama's trust in vaccines, another person will die from a vaccine-preventable disease," Cassidy said.
"Now you've got a megaphone," Cassidy said, adding, "with that influence comes a great responsibility. Now my responsibility is to learn, try and determine if you can be trusted to support the best public health."
HHS, the top health agency in the U.S., has a budget of nearly $2 billion and enormous regulatory power over federal health programs including Medicare, Medicaid and the Affordable Care Act. This includes federal regulations concerning abortion, such as conscience protections for health care workers who decline to participate in certain procedures to which they have an objection.
Kennedy did pledge to senators that he would protect "conscience exemptions" for those workers.
Elsewhere in the hearings, Kennedy at times appeared not to grasp some details of the Medicare and Medicaid programs. Kennedy erroneously described Medicaid, a jointly funded state-federal program, as "fully paid for" by the federal government. He also suggested combining the two, but did not shed light on how he would do so.
Similarly, he said Medicaid's "premiums are too high, the deductibles are too high" although most Medicaid enrollees do not pay either type of fee.
If Kennedy's nomination is approved by the finance committee, he can only afford to lose only three Republican votes on the Senate floor in order to be confirmed.
