Trump Taps Anti-Abortion Activist Who Called Abortion ‘True War on Women’ For Top Health Spot

Charmaine Yoest Also Insisted Abortion Linked to Breast Cancer

Donald Trump on Friday announced that he will appoint anti-abortion movement leader Charmaine Yoest to a top position in the Department of Health and Human Services. Yoest is currently a senior fellow at American Values, a nonprofit that opposes both abortion and same-sex marriage, and will serve as the assistant secretary of public affairs.

As reported by The Huffington Post, Charmaine Yoest, a campaign surrogate for Donald Trump last year, previously served as the former president of Americans United for Life, an organization that advanced anti-abortion legislation and worked extensively to restrict access to abortions nationwide. 

“As women and mothers, we recognize the tragic deception of abortion, and we know women deserve better,” Yoest co-wrote in an editorial for The New York Times in 2012. “We know that abortion is not a means of female empowerment; it is a heartbreaking choice that ends one life and can damage another—and that is the true war on women.”

In a profile on Yoest with the newspaper, Yoest also insisted that abortion is linked to breast cancer. When she was confronted with data from the National Cancer Institute, the American Cancer Society and the American Congress of Obstetricians and Gynecologists refuting the fact, she simply asserted that scientists have fallen “under the control of the abortion lobby.”

“Yoest would only refer back to the pro-life obstetricians she trusts,” the profile reads, and also revealed that she believes that contraceptive devices known as IUDs have “life-ending properties.” (In an interview with PBS, Yoest further referred to birth control as a “red herring that the abortion lobby likes to bring up.”)

Planned Parenthood quickly denounced Trump’s choice:

Yoest’s position, in which she will shape communication efforts for the entire Department of Health and Human Services, does not require senate confirmation.

 

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Image by American Life League via Flickr and a CC license