(Washington, D.C.): In response to a call for ideas for national deregulation by the Trump administration’s Office of Management and Budget, Americans United for Life has submitted recommendations for the rescission of regulatory interpretations intended to expand abortion “rights” under previous administrations.

Regulatory overreach has been used historically to allow protections for abortion beyond the plain language of statutes, including the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services’ (HHS) EMTALA abortion mandate under previous Secretary and abortion advocate, Xavier Becerra. AUL’s comments detail how EMTALA was passed by Congress to address the serious problem of “patient dumping,” but the Biden Administration manipulated EMTALA to contrive a “right” to abortion based on faulty reasoning. It is imperative that the Trump-Kennedy HHS rescind this mandate.

With a similar flawed interpretation, the Biden Administration’s Office of Legal Counsel issued a memorandum that inverted the Supremacy Clause in an effort to neutralize the Comstock Act’s statutory prohibition of mail-order abortion. Flawed reading of the statute and relevant caselaw has allowed this memorandum to essentially allow open borders for chemical abortion, harming women state by state.

Finally, AUL addressed the Equal Opportunity Employment Commission’s (EEOC) final rule regarding the Pregnant Workers Fairness Act. While this law is essential to providing accommodations to women across the workforce through the pregnancy and childbearing process, the EEOC has expanded its intention through a faulty reading of the statute’s plain language to include abortion accommodations.

Carolyn McDonnell, Litigation Counsel with Americans United for Life, expanded upon the comment, saying, “Following the Dobbs decision, the previous Administration contrived protections for abortion within regulatory law. They required emergency rooms to perform elective abortions in certain circumstances, rewrote federal statutes to nullify restrictions on mailing abortifacient matter, and mandated that employers provide abortion accommodations. We urge the Trump Administration to protect women and unborn children by rescinding these flawed regulations.”

Read the full administrative comment here.

AUL-Comment-Request-for-Information-Deregulation

For more information or to arrange an interview with AUL, contact Gavin Oxley at press@aul.org or 202-987-3321. 

Since 1971, Americans United for Life (AUL) has advanced the human right to life in culture, law, and policy by equipping advocates and lawmakers with the facts and strategies that change hearts and minds and protect human life. The first national pro-life organization in the country, AUL is a nonprofit, public-interest law and policy organization with a four-star rating from Charity Navigator.

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