The following are remarks as prepared by Department of Health and Human Services Deputy Secretary Jim O’Neill to the National Pro-Life Conference on Jan. 24.
Men are men. Women are women. Children are innocent and worth protecting. All people deserve to be healthy, happy, and prosperous. It takes organized efforts to deny these fundamental universal truths. Sadly, we have seen such efforts succeed from time to time.
The denial of fundamental truths can destroy nations from within. At the root of the evils we face — murder in the womb, the blurring of lines between sexes, and radical social agendas — is a hatred for nature as it was designed, for life the way it was meant to be lived.
This ideology does not just deny biology; it declares war against it.
It is a welcome relief to be among friends today who understand our shared obligation as leaders: to serve as models of civilization and stand up for dignity, humanity, and the sanctity of life.
Human life at all stages deserves our care and defense. Women have discrete health needs that we must advance, and the beating heart of any thriving society is not party, not corporation, and not the state, but the family.
The Trump Administration is committed to promoting health and protecting life, and we have made many important advances. Affirming human dignity means recognizing that children, including unborn children, are not experimental subjects, and that their futures should not be shaped by pressure, ideology, or myopic medical decisions.
We’ve made it clear that HHS will no longer support any research involving human fetal tissue from elective abortions. Taxpayers will not be forced to support research that depends on abortion, and we have removed federal incentives for the procurement and use of aborted fetal tissue.
There’s more. In addition, this morning, I am happy to announce that NIH has suspended submissions of new human embryonic stem cell lines. We are seeking public comment on emerging biotechnologies that could reduce or replace research on human embryonic stem cells.
Science is never settled, and we must continually pursue truth. Last spring, the Ethics and Public Policy Center published a study based on a review of more than 850,000 insurance claims for prescribed mifepristone abortions between 2017 and 2023. The study found that following a mifepristone abortion, almost one in ten women experienced severe adverse events such as sepsis, infection, or hemorrhaging. Their findings suggested that previous studies had undercounted adverse events by 22 times. Mifepristone may be far more dangerous to the mother than FDA currently recognizes. Confronted with this troubling new information, Commissioner Makary has committed to conducting postmarket surveillance of mifepristone.
Abortion shocks the conscience, and forcing people to pay for abortion adds to the offense. HHS will continue to enforce the Hyde Amendment and protect American taxpayers from paying for elective abortions.
When Maryland tried to circumvent a law prohibiting the federal funding of abortion by creating an abortion grant program, we put the state on notice and demanded that the state cancel implementation of the program.
We also announced plans to revise the Unaccompanied Children Program Foundational Rule to ensure that programs with minors in federal care conform with the Hyde Amendment. They will not pay for abortion.
This week we also announced major enforcement and policy actions that safeguard federal health care provider conscience rights.
An Illinois law that illegally required health care professionals or facilities to perform abortion violated two federal health care conscience protection statutes. To protect the conscience of the providers, we submitted a notice of violation to the state.
We sent a nationwide Dear Colleague letter to educate the public about 26 federal health care conscience protection statutes, including those laws specific to abortion, sterilization, and assisted suicide.
We rescinded eight HHS guidance documents that were issued during the Biden Administration that sought to limit conscience protections regarding abortion.
The biggest provider of abortion is Planned Parenthood. After extensive oversight from HHS, Planned Parenthood in four states relinquished $2.3 million in grants.
Yesterday, the Administration also announced the expansion of the Mexico City policy to block foreign assistance from funding foreign organizations that promote gender ideology, discriminatory equity ideology, DEI, and abortion as a method of family planning.
We thought we’d seen all possible horrors in America, but Canada recently linked physician-assisted suicide to organ procurement. A 2024 study found that deceased donors in Quebec who died this way increased from 4.9% in 2018 to 14% in 2022.
In America, we are reforming our organ procurement system. Organ donation saves lives, but the system that supports it must earn, and keep, the public’s trust.
In the past several months, HHS has advanced reforms to improve oversight, transparency, and performance across organ procurement organizations. These reforms aim to ensure that every potential donation is handled with solemn care, that outcomes are measured honestly, and that patients waiting for transplants are treated with urgency and respect.
We are honoring donors and their families. And we are ensuring that a system built on generosity operates with integrity.
Across all of these areas — research ethics, global engagement, federal funding, civil rights, and organ procurement — we are committed to protecting human dignity and the divine worth in every person, old or young, male or female, born or unborn.
Many American institutions earned our trust over decades and then lost their way and destroyed that trust. We are helping them to earn back that trust.
In the Trump administration, we are very public about our principles, our methods, and our commitment to rigorous science and radical transparency.
Thank you for your advocacy, for your engagement, and your passion. Let’s continue this work together.
Thank you.
This article was updated to reflect these remarks were given at the National Pro-Life Conference.
