President-elect Donald Trump announced Friday evening he has selected Johns Hopkins surgeon, Fox News commentator, and author Dr. Marty Makary as his choice for Food and Drug Administration (FDA) commissioner. Makary first began to take more of a national spotlight during the height of the COVID-19 pandemic for vocally opposing lockdowns and vaccine mandates.
In his role as a physician and Fox News commentator, Makary appeared on Tucker Carlson Tonight in 2022 to discuss the fact that the preborn child can feel pain while in the womb. He also noted the irony in the fact that physicians willingly kill preborn babies the same age as others who doctors work so hard to save.
“Somewhere between 15 and 20 weeks, babies will actually resist the instruments of abortion,” Makary explained. “Roe is based on viability, but viability is changing, babies are surviving now at approximately the half-way point of pregnancy. At 21 and 22 weeks, babies have survived outside the womb. So ironically, we sometimes do fetal surgery on the baby inside the womb of the mother to save the baby’s life, and yet at the same age, in other settings, surgical instruments are used to abort a baby… I’ll tell you, it doesn’t matter which side you protest on, if you see the actual images of what is happening and a baby resisting an abortion, it’ll weigh on your conscience.”
In his role as FDA commissioner, Makary could have direct influence on the lives of preborn children, especially in regards to the abortion pill. Under the Biden administration, it was the FDA that lifted the REMS [Risk Evaluation and Mitigation Strategies] safety standards on mifepristone, the first drug of the two-drug abortion pill regimen. The FDA also removed the required in-person visits to obtain the drug and approved the dispensing of abortion drugs virtually, by mail, or by pharmacy. The loosening of these safety standards led to an increase in overall abortion pill use, and it accounted for 63% of all abortions in 2023.
In what is perhaps a promising sign for those advocating for the protection of preborn lives, Makary’s nomination has struck a chord with abortion advocates, who are warning against his nomination.
“Marty Makary is a known anti-abortion extremist who will push the Project 2025 agenda,” stated Reproductive Freedom for All President and CEO Mini Timmaraju. “He could weaponize the FDA to effectively ban medication abortion, restrict contraception, and weaponize the FDA against reproductive freedom. We’ll hold this administration accountable for any attempt to use the FDA to trample on our freedoms.”
Call on President Trump to pardon the FACE Act prisoners on his first day in office.
