The confirmation of Xavier Becerra as Secretary of the Department of Health and Human Services is alarming given the fact that he has spent his career expanding pro-abortion policies and persecuting pro-life groups and individuals. He has utilized his power as Attorney General of California to punish groups like the Little Sisters of the Poor for their faith as well as the journalists who exposed Planned Parenthood’s trafficking in baby body parts. If his record is any indication, Becerra will weaponize the more than trillion-dollar budget of the Department of Health and Human Services to attack or disadvantage those with whom he disagrees, and advance unpopular pro-abortion policies. Pro-life Americans will be keeping a close eye on Becerra’s agenda and will continue to speak out in defense of women and the unborn.”
March for Life Statement on the Nomination of Xavier Becerra as Head of the Department of Health and Human Services
During his time in public office, Xavier Becerra has displayed a vindictiveness towards those who protect the unborn as well as a disregard for actual healthcare. He has a record of using his position to aggressively attack pro-life institutions and individuals, and clearly has no qualms about wielding his political power to promote taxpayer-funded abortions on demand up until birth – something with which the majority of Americans disagree. Confirming this nominee to lead the Department of Health and Human Services will only further divide America. Americans deserve a well-qualified professional with real medical experience at the helm of HHS, not a puppet for big abortion.”
Jeanne Mancini, President of March for Life
Rolling Back Popular Pro-Life Protections is no Way to Pursue Unity
President Joe Biden promised in his inaugural address to be “a president for all Americans.” It’s a sentiment many are desperate to hear, as the pandemic and political unrest have kept Americans apart and divided these last 10 months.
This year, perhaps more than ever before, our nation needs to move beyond division. We must lock arms as we work toward protecting the inherent dignity of every human person. The unborn person is no exception and deserves equal protection under the law.
President Biden should strive to deliver on his promises of unity and healing. He should reconsider his pledge to roll back the pro-life protections implemented during his predecessor’s administration. As it stands, though, it seems unlikely he’ll take any steps to protect the unborn.
As one of his first moves as president, Biden reversed the Mexico City Policy, which protects taxpayers from funding abortions overseas. He also wants to increase funding to our nation’s largest abortion provider, Planned Parenthood; to codify Roe v. Wade, which legalized abortion through all three trimesters in the United States; and to reinstate an HHS mandate that forces objecting groups to include abortion-inducing drugs in their health care plans.
These are only a few of the deadly policies President Biden and Vice President Kamala Harris plan to implement in the days and weeks ahead. The policies run counter to their promises of unity and healing, and—if enacted—would exacerbate the divisions that afflict our nation.
If Biden and Harris follow through on their promises to expand abortion, they will only further fracture our society. Promoting abortion undermines the inherent dignity of human life and goes against the will of the American people.
In fact, most Americans dislike abortion and don’t want to pay for it. Polling by Marist consistently reveals deeply pro-life sentiments among the American electorate. Almost eight in ten Americans, including many who are pro-choice, would limit abortion to—at most—the first three months of pregnancy, or in cases of rape, incest or to save the life of the mother. The average American doesn’t see abortion as something that should be glorified and certainly isn’t in favor of abortion on demand.
Similarly, 77 percent of the public backs the Mexico City Policy and doesn’t think Americans should be funding abortions overseas. These views carry over to the debate about whether the government should allocate money to Planned Parenthood—the organization that provides the vast majority of abortions in the United States—with 58 percent opposing the use of taxpayer dollars to fund abortions domestically.
If President Biden is serious about uniting a polarized America, he should start by abandoning his party’s extreme, pro-abortion agenda. Instead of listening to Democratic politicians and high-powered pro-abortion donors and lobbyists, he should listen to the American people.
Every year, the March for Life brings together the pro-life movement for a peaceful protest. Our theme for this year—”Together Strong: Life Unites!”—is a beautiful springboard for pro-life Americans of every stripe to reflect upon our need for unity and work together in the year ahead to achieve it.
While ongoing security and public health concerns have forced us to move to a largely virtual format, we remain undeterred from our mission of protecting life. We hope President Biden takes a moment to consider our message, puts away divisive policies and takes up a truly unifying agenda.
The last year has been challenging, and we need leaders who want to heal America and protect life, not policies that snuff out the lives of the most vulnerable among us: the unborn.
Rescinding the Mexico City Policy is Bad for America, Bad for the World
Inauguration Day and the weeks that follow should be a time for the new president to unite the country and build an agenda that crosses party lines. Unfortunately, it seems Joe Biden plans to take the opposite approach, having promised to immediately rescind the Protecting Life in Global Health Assistance Policy, better known as the Mexico City policy.
As millions of Americans are hurting because of the coronavirus, Biden appears hell-bent on canceling an extraordinarily effective and life-giving policy. President Ronald Reagan originally enacted the Mexico City policy to ensure unwilling American taxpayers didn’t fund overseas abortions. Every Republican president since Reagan has promoted the policy, and President Donald Trump expanded it, applying it not only to the U.S. Agency for International Development and the State Department but to other agencies distributing foreign health assistance, like the Department of Defense. This significant change means that billions of taxpayer dollars are protected from paying to promote and subsidize abortion internationally every year.
Unfortunately, Biden can eliminate this pro-life policy with a stroke of a pen. During the Democratic primary, his campaign promised, “Biden will use executive action on his first day in office to withdraw the Mexico City global gag rule.” Vice President Kamala Harris wants to go even further and pass legislation permanently repealing the Mexico City policy. This level of commitment to funding abortion everywhere is, frankly, ghoulish and should concern Americans regardless of political affiliation.
Even abortion supporters don’t think the government should be promoting and funding the practice abroad with the tax dollars of pro-life Americans. A bipartisan majority of Americans reject Biden and Harris’s radical approach to the exportation of abortion, as 75 percent oppose funding overseas abortions with taxpayer funds, including 61 percent who identify as pro-choice.
Despite the need to focus our dwindling resources on families here in our pandemic-battered economy, Biden wants to endanger unborn babies in countries that should self-determine their values.
It is a cruel act of political expedience to dangle abortion over the head of a needy world. Abortion isn’t health care. At-risk communities across the globe stand to benefit from the safety net and companionship that comes from having and raising children. Heaven forbid the United States endorse and fund a program that destroys lives and weakens communities, which is exactly what reversing the Mexico City policy will do.
Biden justifies repealing this popular and life-giving policy by claiming it hurts global public health, even though all the evidence shows the opposite.
A State Department review of the Trump policy shows that only eight of 1,340 primary grant awardees declined health care funds because of the abortion prohibition—proof the policy doesn’t curb critical health assistance in remote parts of the world. “In most cases in which a recipient or sub-recipient declined to agree to the terms of [the Mexico City policy], USAID and/or the prime partner successfully transitioned activities to ensure the continuity of global health assistance,” reads the report.
Secretary of State Mike Pompeo said in a statement the report is evidence the policy doesn’t inhibit the United States’ ability to provide much-needed health care and testing to those in third-world countries. “This review reaffirms that the United States can continue to meet its critical global health goals while protecting life abroad through its global health assistance programs,” he said. “The U.S. government is committed to protecting life, the unborn, and the dignity of the human person.”
A misguided Biden administration would foist a harmful package deal on other countries at the expense, and against the wishes, of American taxpayers. But the return and expansion of the Mexico City policy under the Trump administration was proof positive that it’s possible to defend the unborn and their mothers while also advancing health and well-being around the world.
Becerra Would Be a Radical Pro-Abortion Warrior at HHS
His appalling record — including support for partial-birth abortions — reveals his priorities and anti-life agenda.
Joe Biden’s announcement that he will nominate California attorney general Xavier Becerra to head the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) is a massive blow to all who value women and the lives of the unborn. As a former Democratic representative and current attorney general of California, Becerra has made a career of expanding abortion access, removing protections in place to protect women, and targeting pro-life groups. He has received perfect ratings from both Planned Parenthood and NARAL. It would be a mistake to confirm such a pro-abortion radical to lead HHS.
One need only look at Becerra’s record to imagine what a Health and Human Services Department would look like under his leadership. As the California attorney general, Becerra filed numerous lawsuits to overturn pro-life laws in Arkansas, Louisiana, Mississippi, Missouri, and Ohio. The laws ranged from ensuring that women were protected from unscrupulous abortionists to banning late-term abortions. Becerra justified the lawsuits by claiming that the laws were direct attacks on Roe v. Wade and said, “No government, state or federal, has the right,” to interfere with abortion.
Becerra has made significant efforts to expand abortion access and decrease protections for women despite the fact that the majority of Americans want to see additional limits on the procedure. When in Congress, Becerra voted against a bill that would protect minors from being driven across state lines to procure an abortion without parental consent. Becerra also voted against a bill that would have banned the gruesome practice of partial-birth abortion. Becerra even voted against the Unborn Victims Against Violence Act, which makes a federal offense of harming or killing a child in utero during a violent crime. These bills that he voted against sought to protect vulnerable women and unborn children. It is clear the Becerra is motivated by a radical abortion-driven agenda.
Throughout his career in public office, he has targeted pro-life pregnancy centers and even the Little Sisters of the Poor, a Catholic group of nuns who care for the elderly poor. As attorney general, Becerra defended the California mandate that required pro-life pregnancy centers to provide written or digital information to their patients about how to obtain a state-funded abortion. This meant that staff and volunteers at such centers would be compelled to violate their conscience. Thankfully, the Supreme Court in NIFLA v. Becerra ruled in favor of pro-life pregnancy centers. In another attack on conscience protections, Becerra sued the Little Sisters of the Poor, insisting they violate their conscience and pay for contraception and abortifacients.
When Planned Parenthood’s fetal trafficking was exposed by the Center for Medical Progress, Becerra did everything in his power, both in Congress and as California attorney general, to defend Planned Parenthood. In Congress, Becerra voted against a congressional investigation into the scandal. Later, as California attorney general, Becerra followed in the footsteps of then–attorney general, Kamala Harris, when he brought 14 felony charges against the people who exposed Planned Parenthood’s baby-body-parts trafficking scheme.
Based on Becerra’s record, there is no doubt that he will use HHS’s trillion-dollar budget to advocate policies that promote abortion and attack conscience protections for health workers. At a time when the country is so fractured, it is tragic that Biden has picked such a divisive figure for a key role in his cabinet. And it’s particularly disturbing after he campaigned on unifying Americans.
But there is hope. The Senate could block Becerra’s nomination if enough pro-life senators oppose it. This makes it even more important for pro-life candidates Kelly Loeffler and David Perdue to win the Georgia runoff election. I urge all pro-life Georgians to get out and vote and to encourage their friends and family to do the same. The message is clear: Without a pro-life majority in the Senate, the Biden-Harris administration will bring its radical abortion agenda to the highest offices in the land.