WASHINGTON: In a sweeping social policy shift, the Trump administration is seeking to remake health rules at home and abroad for women, gay and transgender people, restricting access to abortion, curtailing support for contraception and narrowing the scope of civil rights in healthcare.
Public health civil rights offices, marshalled to strengthen LGBT rights under Obama, have been retooled into a new Office of Conscience and Religious Freedom. This month, the office unveiled a final “conscience rule” to strengthen protections for healthcare workers who object to performing abortions and sterilisations or treating gay and transgender patients.
Emboldened by the movement and by the new conservative majority on the Supreme Court, states including Alabama and Missouri have passed laws in recent weeks that nearly outlaw abortion, spurring nationwide protests. Nationally, this public health battle has often been pushed to the background by the nonstop churn of Trump’s tweets and controversies.
“It means a great deal to the president to hear that from somebody who had been a legislator on Capitol Hill for 12 years, a governor for four, and somebody who like the president is trusted by the small c conservative movement as a full-spectrum conservative,” Conway said. “Pence’s influence has come from … getting people who have the same worldview as Pence in key positions at things you care about and then trusting them to make decisions,” said Paul Winfree, who served as deputy director of the White House Domestic Policy Council under Trump and is now at the conservative Heritage Foundation think tank.
The agency took on a new religious tone. Price hosted a Bible study on Wednesday mornings for members of Congress and political appointees, a former senior HHS official said.After being elected to Congress on his third try, in 2000, Pence formed connections to the Washington anti-abortion movement, including Dannenfelser, the Susan B Anthony List president. Dannenfelser had previously served as staff director of the Congressional Pro-Life Caucus.
Other times, he gets directly involved. During the Republican campaign to repeal Obamacare, Dannenfelser said she attended a meeting in Pence’s office, helping the vice president and staff craft language to add anti-abortion provisions to the failed bill.