President Donald Trump’s choose for lead watchdog on the Well being and Human Companies Division is more likely to have a significant battle of curiosity on the subject of abortion.
Thomas March Bell, a former Justice Division legal professional who served in Trump’s first administration, has labored for anti-abortion Republicans for many years and boasts deep ties to anti-abortion teams like Operation Rescue.
Nonetheless, Trump nominated Bell to be the following inspector normal at HHS — a traditionally nonpartisan position that oversees the billions of federal {dollars} used to run HHS packages. The inspector normal ensures that every one packages run effectively and is tasked with investigating any claims of fraud or abuse.
It’s very possible Bell will probably be confirmed throughout a Wednesday morning Senate vote. Trump fired the final HHS inspector normal, together with over a dozen different authorities watchdogs, earlier this yr — sparking pushback from Senate Democrats who argued Bell’s nomination is illegal as a result of Trump illegally fired the earlier HHS inspector normal.
As HHS inspector normal, Bell can be tasked with overseeing investigations into the Medicare and Medicaid packages — the latter being the most important funder of reproductive well being companies within the nation, the Middle for Reproductive Rights notes. That is significantly vital since Republicans recently floated including extra limits to how a lot Obamacare funds can be utilized for abortion companies. Much like Trump defunding Planned Parenthood by way of Medicaid restrictions, including abortion restrictions to ACA tax credit score utilization might quantity to a backdoor abortion ban for any American insured below Obamacare.
The HHS position would additionally make Bell answerable for investigating hospitals and verifying organizations observe all federal protocol, together with the Emergency Medical Remedy and Labor Act, or EMTALA, federal steering that requires hospitals that take part in Medicare to supply abortion care if it’s essential to stabilize the well being of a pregnant affected person whereas they’re experiencing a medical emergency. The Trump administration repealed some EMTALA steering earlier this yr, signaling the administration doesn’t help abortion care even in life-saving circumstances.
Bell boasts a protracted checklist of anti-abortion advocacy. He helped create the Conscience and Religious Freedom Division whereas working for distinguished Venture 2025 creator Roger Severino within the Workplace for Civil Rights below Trump’s first administration. The HHS division created in 2018 weaponized non secular liberty to weaken and restrict entry to sexual and reproductive well being care.
Notably, Bell was chief counsel for a extremely controversial congressional investigation into Deliberate Parenthood in 2015. The choose panel was spearheaded by Bell and led by then-Rep. Marsha Blackburn (R-Tenn.) to research allegations from anti-abortion activists that Deliberate Parenthood’s nationwide community of clinics was promoting fetal tissue stays. After a 15-month investigation that value $1.6 million in taxpayer cash, the panel discovered no proof of wrongdoing. Nonetheless, Republicans really helpful that the federal authorities defund Deliberate Parenthood. Bell reportedly later said that the purpose of the investigation was to weaken the nationwide reproductive well being group.
“Thomas Bell has made clear he desires to research abortion clinics and even beforehand recused himself from some Deliberate Parenthood-related points as a result of he’s too biased,” Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass) informed HuffPost. “Donald Trump and Republicans have been hellbent on ripping away abortion entry since day one – nominating Bell is the most recent of their harmful anti-abortion agenda.”
Bell mentioned he wouldn’t recuse himself from any abortion-related issues if confirmed to the position of inspector normal, in keeping with Bell’s written responses to members of the Senate Finance Committee, which had been shared with HuffPost.
(Bell recused himself “from all enforcement issues associated to his work” on the 2015 Deliberate Parenthood investigation earlier than becoming a member of Trump’s first administration, an OCR spokesperson said in 2018. In a written response to Warren’s committee questions, Bell denied that he had ever totally recused himself from all issues regarding Deliberate Parenthood.)
Sen. Ron Wyden (D-Ore.) criticized Bell and his Republican colleagues throughout a Senate Finance Committee listening to final month relating to Bell’s nomination. “The file exhibits he [Bell] spent his profession operating smear campaigns, together with heading up a witch hunt in opposition to Deliberate Parenthood,” Wyden mentioned, referring to the 2015 investigation.
In the identical listening to, Bell pointed to his work within the controversial investigation as “exercising oversight over the fetal tissue trade, an trade that the Congress has banned in a federal statute.”
Bell later added that, if confirmed, he believes investigating abortion clinics is a part of his job as HHS inspector normal. “That’s precisely the sort of factor that the inspector normal will need to have the braveness to do – observe the legislation and observe the info even when it’s unpopular,” Bell mentioned in response to a query from Sen. James Lankford (R-Okla.).
If Bell is confirmed, he joins a protracted checklist of deeply anti-abortion Trump nominations throughout all federal companies, however particularly HHS. FDA Commissioner Martin Makary announced in June, with the support of HHS Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr., that the company will evaluation mifepristone regardless of many years of scientific proof that exhibits the abortion tablet is extraordinarily secure and efficient. One in all Mehmet Oz’s first directives because the administrator of the Facilities for Medicare and Medicaid Companies was to rescind Biden-era steering supporting entry to life-saving abortion care as a result of it didn’t reflect the coverage of the Trump administration.
The Senate vote to substantiate Bell as HHS inspector normal is scheduled for Wednesday morning.
