Newly confirmed U.S. Secretary of Health and Human Services Robert F. Kennedy Jr. said that President Donald Trump has asked him to “study the safety” of the abortion pill mifepristone after regulations were relaxed under the Biden administration.
In an interview on Fox News’ “The Ingraham Angle” last Thursday, Kennedy said Trump asked him to “study the safety signals” of the abortion pill, also known as mifepristone, the first drug in the chemical abortion regimen.
“I think that is worth doing,” Kennedy said.
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The comment comes as pro-life advocates are pressuring the administration to tighten restrictions on the pill after the U.S. Food and Drug Administration moved during the Biden presidency to allow doctors to prescribe the pill without doing in-person appointments.
Today, mifepristone can be distributed through the mail and at major retail pharmacies without a woman being seen by a doctor to ensure she does not have an ectopic pregnancy.
Pro-life doctors have warned about the risks associated with taking abortion pills without medical supervision because of the complications that could arise, calling the FDA’s relaxing of abortion pill regulations a “disregard for human life and safety.”
In his interview, Kennedy condemned what he said was the suppression of information about the potential harms caused by the drug.
“During the Biden administration, the [National Institutes of Health] did something that was inexcusable, which is to tell doctors and patients not to report injuries,” he said. “That’s not a good policy.”
In 2016, under the Obama administration, rules were changed so that non-fatal injuries from the abortion pill no longer have to be reported to the FDA. Additionally, restrictions were eased so that women could take the abortion pill as late as 10 weeks into a pregnancy instead of seven weeks. Pro-life advocates have argued that health complications from taking the abortion pill are far greater than what is being reported to the U.S. government.
Kennedy made similar comments to Sen. James Lankford, R-Okla., during his confirmation hearing last month, vowing to look into “safety issues” surrounding the abortion pill.
In another part of the interview with Ingraham, Kennedy said he believes a “spiritual realignment” is necessary to overcome addiction and other health challenges impacting the United States.
He reiterated the thought he shared in his confirmation hearing: “We’re not just in a health crisis, but we’re in a spiritual crisis.”
During his presidential campaign as a Democratic candidate and then an independent leading up to the 2024 presidential election, he found many people with “a purposelessness in their lives” and “no sense of usefulness or effectiveness or connectedness to their communities.”
“That drives also the chronic disease epidemic and the epidemics we’re seeing of depression, of suicide, of alcoholism, of drug addiction,” he added. “We need to get up in the morning and not think about ‘what am I going to do to make myself happy today.’ We have to get up and say, ‘What am I going to do to make myself useful today, to be useful to my friends, to my family, to my community’ and that, paradoxically, is ultimately the path to happiness.”
Kennedy said the “connectedness” people get from doing good deeds and being of service to others is a source of happiness. Reflecting on the praise his confirmation received from the community of addicts, Kennedy shared his own experience with drug addiction.
“I feel like I was born an addict,” he said. “These impulses are biologically hardwired into us. The only way to overcome that biological impulse is with a spiritual realignment.”
He insisted that such a realignment “comes from connectedness to community.”
“Alcoholism and addiction are diseases of isolation,” he said. “People end up in jails, institutions and dead or in bathrooms by themselves or insulated by secrets.”
Kennedy warned that people in such scenarios are withdrawn from “community and from connectedness.”
“The process of getting sober is a process of reconnecting to community,” he continued.
Kennedy mentioned the role of spirituality in solving the public health crisis during his confirmation hearing before the U.S. Senate Finance Committee last month.
“This is not just [an] economic issue, it’s not just a national security issue, it is a spiritual issue and it is a moral issue,” he said.
Kennedy’s interview on “The Ingraham Angle” came the same day that the Republican-controlled U.S. Senate confirmed Kennedy’s nomination to lead the Department of Health and Human Services in a 52-48 vote that fell largely along party lines.
All but one Republican senator supported Kennedy’s confirmation, while all Democrats opposed it. Kennedy secured the votes necessary for confirmation despite concerns from the pro-life community about his past support for abortion.
Ryan Foley is a reporter for The Christian Post. He can be reached at: ryan.foley@christianpost.com
