{"id":2501,"date":"2024-11-15T16:17:45","date_gmt":"2024-11-15T16:17:45","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/bluelightnews.com\/category\/politics\/pence-urges-senate-to-reject-rfk-jr-for-hhs-over-abortion-stance\/"},"modified":"2024-11-15T16:17:45","modified_gmt":"2024-11-15T16:17:45","slug":"pence-urges-senate-to-reject-rfk-jr-for-hhs-over-abortion-stance","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/bluelightnews.com\/category\/politics\/pence-urges-senate-to-reject-rfk-jr-for-hhs-over-abortion-stance\/","title":{"rendered":"Pence urges Senate to reject RFK Jr. for HHS over abortion stance"},"content":{"rendered":"<div>\n<p>Mike Pence is urging Senate Republicans to not confirm Robert F. Kennedy, Jr. as Health and Human Services secretary, calling his nomination by President-elect Donald Trump \u201cdeeply concerning.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>\u201cI believe the nomination of RFK Jr. to serve as Secretary of HHS is an abrupt departure from the pro-life record of our administration and should be deeply concerning to millions of Pro-Life Americans who have supported the Republican Party and our nominees for decades,\u201d Pence said in a statement Friday on behalf of his conservative nonprofit Advancing American Freedom.<\/p>\n<p>During his own bid for president, Kennedy <a href=\"https:\/\/www.politico.com\/news\/2023\/08\/13\/rfk-jr-backs-15-week-federal-ban-on-abortion-00111017\" target=\"_blank\">repeatedly emphasized<\/a> he believes in \u201ca woman\u2019s right to choose\u201d and does not support legislation banning abortion. Kennedy is a \u201cfirm supporter\u201d of <i>Roe v. Wade<\/i>, according to his <a href=\"https:\/\/www.mahanow.org\/position-on-abortion-faq\" target=\"_blank\">campaign website<\/a>, which says \u201cIf the courts do not overturn Dobbs v. Jackson and restore abortion rights, he will support legislation to accomplish the same.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Pence served as Trump\u2019s vice president during his first administration, but their relationship soured after the Indiana Republican moved to certify the 2020 election for President Joe Biden. Since then, he has <a href=\"https:\/\/www.politico.com\/news\/2024\/07\/09\/pence-slams-rnc-platform-abortion-00167169\" target=\"_blank\">publicly disagreed with Trump and the Republican party on policy<\/a> positions, especially leaving abortion up to the states instead of favoring a national ban.<\/p>\n<p>In the statement, Pence said the agency Trump tapped Kennedy to lead makes \u201chundreds of decisions\u201d daily \u201cthat either lead our nation toward a respect for life or away from it.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>\u201cIf confirmed, RFK, Jr. would be the most pro-abortion Republican appointed secretary of HHS in modern history,\u201d Pence said in the statement.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Mike Pence is urging Senate Republicans to not confirm Robert F. Kennedy, Jr. as Health and Human Services secretary, calling his nomination by President-elect Donald Trump \u201cdeeply concerning.\u201d \u201cI believe the nomination of RFK Jr. to serve as Secretary of HHS is an abrupt departure from the pro-life record of our administration and should be [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-2501","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-congress"],"amp_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/bluelightnews.com\/category\/politics\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2501","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/bluelightnews.com\/category\/politics\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/bluelightnews.com\/category\/politics\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bluelightnews.com\/category\/politics\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bluelightnews.com\/category\/politics\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2501"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/bluelightnews.com\/category\/politics\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2501\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/bluelightnews.com\/category\/politics\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2501"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bluelightnews.com\/category\/politics\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2501"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bluelightnews.com\/category\/politics\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2501"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}