Category: March for Life
The FDA is undermining a culture of life inside and outside the womb
Last Friday during the annual March for Life, President Trump delivered a pledge to the nation: His administration stands for the “infinite worth and God-given dignity of every human life.” Vice President JD Vance’s remarks at the rally were just as clear: We must “build up that culture of life” and “cannot be neutral. Our country cannot be indifferent about whether its next generations live or die.”
Vance and Trump were primarily talking about the unborn. But their principles clearly include providing the right to life — as well as health and safety — for all citizens, especially the most vulnerable among us.
We have entire policies at the FDA dedicated to making it more difficult for children inside and outside the womb to live the lives they deserve.
Unfortunately, these principles have been undermined by a few key officials at the Food and Drug Administration, and not just for unborn children. Thousands of kids with rare diseases have seen valuable treatments slowed or even halted since last summer, thanks to FDA Commissioner Marty Makary and Chief Medical Officer Vinay Prasad.
As one of the oldest living Americans with spina bifida (I celebrate my 60th birthday this year), I understand the value of providing children with rare and fatal diseases the ability to improve or even extend their lives from a personal, policy, and political perspective. I took that knowledge into the first Trump administration as the commissioner of the Administration on Disability at the Department of Health & Human Services. Today, I’m deeply concerned by what Makary, Prasad, and — at times — Health & Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. have done to reduce children’s ability to live the full length of their God-given lives.
Those concerns were why I raised the alarm when RFK Jr. was going through his Senate hearings a year ago. He had been openly supportive of abortion on the presidential campaign trail, but I and other concerned pro-life advocates were told that he would have plenty of pro-lifers around him and that people would become policy. They were right: People did become policy, but not the way we had hoped. Now, we have entire policies at the FDA dedicated to making it more difficult for children inside and outside the womb to live the lives they deserve.
Last October, the FDA outraged pro-life warriors across the country by approving a cheaper version of mifepristone, one of the most prevalent and notorious abortion drugs on the market. Women can have these drugs dropped off in their mailboxes and have abortions in the “comfort” of their own homes. The pro-abortion Guttmacher Institute estimates there were over 640,000 chemical abortions in 2023 — 63% of the total abortions that year.
In 2026, there will be even more.
That number, troubling enough on its own, understates the problem because it doesn’t account for the injuries these drugs inflict on the women who take them. One devastating fact I have learned in my advocacy for people with disabilities is the particular hazard the abortion pill presents for women who use wheelchairs or otherwise live with limited mobility. Any drug that causes blood clots — and abortion drugs definitely do — will be a deadly danger to people who have limited mobility.
FDA Chief Medical Officer Vinay Prasad is similarly problematic for those who support protecting life. He not only supports legalized abortion, but since his appointment in mid-2025, Prasad has held up the production of drugs and treatments that would make real differences in the lives of kids who suffer from rare diseases like Sanfilippo syndrome and Duchenne muscular dystrophy.
In 2018, Prasad opposed the Trump “right to try” doctrine, through which hundreds of patients have seen amazing results from drugs still in their experimental stages or through off-label usage. That number could be higher if Prasad’s red tape weren’t keeping effective drugs in “pre-approval” limbo.
RELATED: No, President Trump: The sanctity of life is not ‘flexible’
Photo by Kyle Mazza/Anadolu via Getty Images
At HHS, the buck stops with RFK Jr. But ultimately in our government, the buck stops at the Oval Office. Trump and Vance recommitted to supporting life on Friday, and that commitment must be consistent throughout the administration. The FDA’s actions against the unborn and children with disabilities and rare diseases threaten to undermine what should be a slam dunk for Trump’s pro-life legacy.
In short, HHS and FDA appointees should be defending life, not quietly undermining it. Vance and Trump can make that happen.
‘THE BATTLE MUST BE WON’: President Trump Delivers Remarks to March For Life Participants [WATCH]
![‘THE BATTLE MUST BE WON’: President Trump Delivers Remarks to March For Life Participants [WATCH]](https://hannity.com/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/GettyImages-2256299305-300x200.jpg "President Trump Participates In A Signing Ceremony In The Oval Office")
President Donald Trump on Friday delivered a pre-recorded address to participants in the annual March for Life demonstration in Washington, D.
Nash Keen’s life proves the unborn deserve the law’s protection
Nash Keen holds the Guinness World Record for the most premature infant to survive outside the womb. Born at just 21 weeks’ gestation, Nash’s story forces us to grapple with an unsettling reality: In 29 states and Washington, D.C., the law would have permitted his abortion for at least another week.
At 21 weeks, abortionists commonly use dilation and extraction. Many call it a dismemberment abortion, and the term fits. The procedure requires pulling the child apart.
We’ve made real progress since the Dobbs decision. Thirteen states, including my home state of West Virginia, protect life from the moment of conception.
A Sopher clamp — a metal tool with sharp, serrated jaws — grasps a limb, the torso, or the head. The abortionist twists and tears the body piece by piece. The child has a beating heart and can feel pain. Arms and legs are ripped from the torso. The spine snaps. The skull is crushed so it can pass through the cervix. Blood and tissue are suctioned out. Then the abortionist reassembles the remains on a tray to confirm nothing is left behind.
This barbarity happens tens of thousands of times each year in the United States.
Consider the contrast. At 21 weeks, doctors and nurses fought to keep Nash alive. At the same stage of development, in other hospitals and clinics across the country, medical professionals ended the lives of other babies.
What separates those children? No coherent answer exists because no meaningful difference exists. Every child — born and unborn — bears God-given dignity and deserves the protection of our laws.
This year, Nash will turn 2. His survival, as rare as it is, reveals why so many Americans fight for life — and why we will win.
I plan to do everything I can to protect the most vulnerable among us. That’s why I’m proud to co-sponsor the Life at Conception Act, which aligns federal policy with scientific reality: Life begins at conception, and the law should protect it.
Policymakers must also do more to support mothers and fathers raising children. If we aim — as we should — to end abortion, our laws must protect the unborn and make it easier to raise a family in America.
RELATED: New York caves on forcing nuns and churches to fund abortion after knockout SCOTUS ruling
Photo by JOSEPH PREZIOSO/AFP via Getty Images
That’s why I have introduced legislation to give low-income families more flexibility to choose the child-care option that fits their situation.
I have also introduced legislation to eliminate marriage penalties that discourage single parents from marrying.
And I have also introduced a bill to close a loophole so women who choose not to return to work after giving birth cannot be forced to reimburse an employer for health insurance premiums from the year they delivered.
Similarly I support legislation that would hold fathers accountable for pregnancy costs as part of child support. I supported expanding the Child Tax Credit in the One Big Beautiful Bill Act, and I advocate extending the credit to cover the months of pregnancy.
We’ve made real progress since the Dobbs decision. Thirteen states, including my home state of West Virginia, protect life from the moment of conception. In Congress, the One Big Beautiful Bill Act finally defunds big-abortion providers.
The fight has only begun. As long as I’m in public service, I will work to protect every life from the moment of conception — and to ensure federal policy puts the American family first.
