When Joe Biden ran for president, he made repeated promises to expand abortion and undo many of the pro-life measures implemented under the Trump administration. In the short time Biden has been in the White House, he has quickly worked to ensure what will be a legacy of death.
Biden has appointed the most radical pro-abortion administration in history, which includes Kamala Harris. In 2015, Harris launched the investigation into the work of Sandra Merritt and David Daleiden, the founder of the Center for Medical Progress, after these citizen journalists discovered and then produced videos documenting Planned Parenthood’s illegal trafficking of aborted baby body parts. Harris personally met with six Planned Parenthood executives in March 2016 in Los Angeles. Two weeks later, Harris ordered a search warrant of Daleiden’s home specifically seeking unreleased videos and documents. Agents seized his laptop and multiple hard drives which should have been protected by the California shield law which protects citizen journalists’ unpublished materials. Planned Parenthood and Harris then unleashed a vicious two-front attack which included 15 criminal charges and a civil lawsuit seeking millions against these citizen journalists. As a result, Merritt and Daleiden became the first undercover journalists to be charged with a crime for undercover recordings made in the public interest in the history of California.
During Biden’s first 100 days, he has signed 40 executive orders and 62 total executive actions (including executive orders, memoranda, and other actions) which reveal that this administration has moved more aggressively than any other presidential administration to undue federal pro-life policies and promote abortion.
Here are some actions the Biden administration has taken to make good on their abortion promises:
1) Sent a letter to António Guterres, the secretary-general of the UN, which stated that the United States would rejoin the World Health Organization (WHO) despite its radical advocacy for expanding abortion.
2) On Jan. 22, 2021—the 48th anniversary of Roe v. Wade—the White House issued a statement describing the 1973 U.S. Supreme Court decision as a “foundational precedent” and reaffirming the Biden-Harris administration’s commitment to seeing Roe v. Wade codified in law.
3) On Jan. 28, 2021, the White House released a “Memorandum on Protecting Women’s Health at Home and Abroad” which contained the following:
- Repealed the Trump administration’s Protecting Life in Global Health Assistance Policy (PLGHA), which prohibited global health funds from going to foreign non-governmental organizations (NGOs) that perform or promote abortion.
- Withdrew the U.S. from the Geneva Consensus, a 35-country agreement that declared abortion is not an international human right and should never be promoted as a method of family planning.
- Repealed the Mexico City Policy which was first implemented under President Reagan and set forth the requirement that international nongovernmental organizations could neither promote nor perform abortions as part of their family planning services if they wanted to receive U.S. funds. Through the years, presidents have chosen to implement or revoke the policy. Trump chose the former, Biden the latter.
- Reinstated funding to the United Nations Population Fund (UNFPA). Population control is at the core of the UNFPA, and the U.N. agency promotes family planning as a human right. It is widely known that “family planning” includes contraceptives and abortion. Though the UNFPA insists it works to eliminate the need for abortion instead of promoting it, the UNFPA has a history of employing coercive methods to implement its agenda and operates in countries known to conduct forced abortions and sterilizations.
- With Biden’s promise to reinstate funding to UNFPA, he is broadly defining (which means ignoring) the Kemp-Kasten Amendment, which states that no U.S. funds can go to people or agencies that knowingly engage in coercive abortions or sterilizations. The UNFPA gives money to and operates in China. It is known that China has long engaged in forced abortions and sterilizations.
Other pro-abortion measures enacted by the Biden-Harris administration:
4) Nominated Xavier Becerra as the secretary of Health and Human Services (HHS). Throughout his time as a U.S. representative and the attorney general of California, Becerra showed support for barbaric abortion practices, including partial-birth abortion and infanticide, forcing taxpayers to pay for abortions and violating the consciences of Americans. Becerra tried to force pregnancy care centers to promote abortions in California and sued nuns, asserting they should pay for contraception and abortifacients. After he became attorney general, he continued Harris’ political prosecution of Merritt and Daleiden. The HHS secretary has tremendous power, influence and funding at his/her disposal, and Becerra’s track record indicates how he will wield it.
5) Approved telemedicine abortions. Previously, a U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) rule required patients to visit an office in person to receive abortion-inducing drugs. Lower courts challenged the rule, but the Supreme Court upheld the FDA requirement. However, under the Biden administration, the FDA has removed this restriction for the remainder of the COVID-19 “pandemic.”
6) Forces Americans to fund research that uses tissue from aborted babies. The National Institutes of Health (NIH) announced HHS has reversed a policy put in place under the Trump administration that halted all NIH-funded research using aborted fetal tissue. The ethics advisory board established to review grants using elective abortion fetal tissue also was disbanded.
7) Signed the American Rescue Plan Act, a $1.9 trillion COVID-19 relief package that lacks key abortion funding restrictions on over $459 billion instead of providing financial help to the American people.
8) Published a proposed rule to repeal the Protect Life Rule. These rule changes would once again allow Title X family planning grants to go to abortion businesses and require grantees to provide abortion referrals to their patients.
9) Promised to make passing the “Equality Act” a priority within his first 100 days of office. The “Equality Act” states that “pregnancy, childbirth or a related medical condition shall not receive less favorable treatment than other physical conditions.” Agencies and judicial interpretation understand this language to include abortion. Thus, the “Equality Act” will create a federal “right” to abortion and will preempt every state law. As such, this provision puts in jeopardy both longstanding federal conscience laws providing for protections for abortion objectors, and even the Hyde Amendment, prohibiting taxpayer funding for abortion. The “Equality Act” has zero religious exemptions.
Liberty Counsel Founder and Chairman Mat Staver said, “Since the tragic Roe v. Wade decision in 1973, the lives of more than 62 million unborn children in the United States have been brutally killed by abortion. The legacy of the Biden administration is one of death and human genocide.”
