Undoing the damage done

Inauguration Day is at hand. A new political era awaits. And on Day One, President Donald Trump can set the moral tone for his second term with the stroke of a pen. He can restore the full suite of pro-life policies that his own Department of Health and Human Services developed during his first term. No priority should be—could be—higher than protecting America’s unborn children.

Most everyone recognizes President Trump’s marquee pro-life accomplishment: the Supreme Court’s landmark Dobbs decision in 2022, which overturned Roe v. Wade with the votes of the justices Trump appointed and returned the abortion question to the people. But that wasn’t his only pro-life achievement—far from it. The first Trump administration advanced a series of life-protecting rules and regulations through federal agencies that saved untold lives.

Many Americans don’t realize just how consequential agency actions truly are. These rules set the direction of policy for the whole of the government—and federal agencies influence policy in the states, too, through extensive grant programs and other means. Because Congress regularly delegates massive authority to federal agencies, the rules and regulations they promulgate carry the force of law. For those reasons, directing the federal bureaucracy is one of the president’s greatest powers.

President Trump should use that power to protect life, just as he did in his first term. In the first Trump administration, HHS advanced a broad slate of pro-life measures critical to defending the unborn.

First, it correctly determined that federal funding for family planning through the Title X grant program shouldn’t mean federal funding for abortion providers. That’s because abortion doesn’t build families—it destroys them.

Second, HHS made pregnancy resource centers eligible to receive federal funding through grants designed for the support of needy families. That’s because these centers—which provide ultrasounds, diapers, counseling, and a host of other resources to expectant mothers, often at no cost—serve as critical lifelines for struggling families across the nation.

Third, President Trump implemented the Mexico City Policy that blocked federal funding to international aid groups that promote abortions. That’s because American foreign aid should be aimed at nurturing life, not ending it. American taxpayers should never be forced to subsidize abortions in other countries.

And all that is just the tip of the iceberg. The list of President Trump’s pro-life accomplishments at HHS goes on and on—from restricting the use of human fetal tissue obtained from abortions to defending the value of unborn human life on the international stage.

Predictably, these achievements came under immediate attack once Joe Biden arrived in the Oval Office. Pro-abortion activists in the Biden administration spent years trying to dismantle President Trump’s work at HHS. In the hands of President Biden, HHS tried to force federal grant recipients to make referrals for abortions, cut off funding for pregnancy resource centers, and use American tax dollars to help pay for abortions overseas.

After the Dobbs ruling, the Biden administration’s abortion extremism went into overdrive. Biden’s FBI and Department of Justice carried out raids on the homes of pro-life Americans and jailed peaceful protesters at abortion facilities. And when pregnancy resource centers were vandalized and firebombed in the wake of the Supreme Court’s ruling, the Justice Department mostly stood idly by.

Not content with persecuting pro-life Americans, the Biden administration attempted to undermine Dobbs. The Supreme Court’s decision committed the question of abortion policy to the voters and their elected representatives, just as the Constitution requires. But the Biden administration promptly enacted new federal rules permitting chemical abortion drugs to be mailed into pro-life states, effectively rendering state restrictions on abortion—adopted by voters and elected legislatures—worthless.

Members of Team Biden knew exactly what they were doing. More than 70 percent of abortions in the United States are chemical abortions performed by taking medication. By making those drugs available through the mail regardless of state law, the Biden administration imposed its abortion-on-demand agenda on every voter and state, putting women’s health at risk to do it. Before Biden, the Food and Drug Administration had long required abortion drugs to be dispensed only in person and under medical supervision. The Biden administration gutted those rules.

Thankfully, it’s a new day. And President Trump has the power to start protecting life again—immediately. He should use that power boldly to protect those who most need it: the innocent unborn.