Former Vice President Mike Pence urged Senate Republicans on Friday to vote against President-elect Donald Trump's nomination of Robert F. Kennedy, Jr. as secretary of the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, citing his views on abortion.
"The Trump-Pence administration was unapologetically pro-life for our four years in office. There are hundreds of decisions made at HHS every day that either lead our nation toward a respect for life or away from it, and HHS under our administration always stood for life," Pence said in a statement via his nonprofit Advancing American Freedom.
"I 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," Pence continued.
Pence asserted that for the majority of his career, Kennedy has "has defended abortion on demand during all nine months of pregnancy, supports overturning the Dobbs decision and has called for legislation to codify Roe v. Wade," and that he would be "the most pro-abortion Republican appointed secretary of HHS in modern history" if confirmed.
"The pro-life movement has always looked to the Republican party to stand for life, to affirm an unborn child has a fundamental right to life which cannot be infringed."
Claiming he was speaking "on behalf of tens of millions of pro-life Americans," Pence urged the Senate GOP to "reject this nomination and give the American people a leader who will respect the sanctity of life as secretary of Health and Human Services."
Kennedy has been inconsistent in his public position on abortion, claiming in May that he would allow women to have abortions even at full term, though he subsequently said he supported abortion only up to the point of fetal viability.
Other Christian conservatives have expressed concern about Kennedy's nomination, including Daniel Darling, director of the Land Center for Cultural Engagement at the Southwestern Baptist Theological Seminary, who formerly served with the Southern Baptist Convention's public policy arm.
"If true, a huge blow to social conservatives," Darling wrote in an X post.
"He's pro abortion till birth. Pro FDA approval of abortion pill. HHS touches a lot of policy conservative, pro family folks care about."
Lila Rose, president of the pro-life activist group Live Action, stressed that the HHS secretary is "in charge of virtually anything abortion-related" in the executive branch of the federal government.
Tom Buck, the pastor of First Baptist Church of Lindale, Texas, and director of G3 Ministries, said the Kennedy nomination "invites further judgment on our nation!"
"Many told me voting for Trump would be fine because he wouldn't appoint pro-aboriton people to positions like this," Buck wrote on Twitter. "But here we are! RFK Jr. supports abortion up until birth, restoring Roe nationwide, and the abortion pill!"
When Trump announced Thursday that Kennedy was his choice to helm HHS, the news prompted pharmaceutical stocks to plummet as some health experts expressed consternation at the pick. Kennedy's nomination also drew condemnation from the editorial board of The New York Post, who called him "nuts on a lot of fronts."
Kennedy, who ran as an independent presidential candidate before dropping out to endorse Trump, has made purging corruption in the federal health bureaucracy a major part of his platform. His 2021 book The Real Anthony Fauci: Bill Gates, Big Pharma, and the Global War on Democracy and Public Health accused former director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases Anthony Fauci of corruption and cover-up regarding COVID-19 especially.
"For too long, Americans have been crushed by the industrial food complex and drug companies who have engaged in deception, misinformation, and disinformation when it comes to Public Health," Trump said in his announcement regarding Kennedy.
Last October, Pence was the first candidate among Trump's 2024 Republican primary challengers to drop out of the race, months after former Fox News host Tucker Carlson grilled him over his support for U.S. involvement in Ukraine.
"I have no regrets," Pence said after dropping out. "The only thing that would have been harder than coming up short would have been if we never tried at all."
During a recent interview with NPR reporter Steve Inskeep, Pence declined to say if he still believes Trump is "a good man," which he claimed during a speech at the 2016 Republican National Convention in Cleveland, Ohio.
"I truly do believe that only God knows our hearts, and I'll leave it to others to make their own judgments," he said after claiming he believes Trump was wrong to believe he had the authority to overturn the 2020 presidential election.
