By most accounts, if your name didn’t end in Fauci (whose net worth increased by $5 million during the pandemic), the Public Health Emergency declared and enforced in the name of COVID-19 was a wrecking ball through your life, which is why news that the Biden administration is thinking of declaring another one is profoundly troubling. Only this time, they don’t want to save lives but to end them.
Axios broke the story that far from being shell shocked by the upheaval of COVID-19 counter measures, the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) is contemplating declaring a new Public Health Emergency because … wait for it … some children might not die from abortions in all 50 states.
At the center of this power grab is none other than HHS Secretary Xavier Becerra, a lawyer, heading up our nation’s healthcare systems after a stellar career of going after the FDA in court during the previous administration to get more chemical abortion pills on the market without health and safety precautions in place. Certainly not the usual expertise presidents might want for those handling your grandmother’s health insurance.
And how would one justify taking over the rights of states to make their own laws on abortion, something that the Supreme Court proactively protected in the recent Dobbs case? Magical experts of course.
Axios reported that Becerra has a plan, saying: “There are certain criteria that you look for to be able to declare a public health emergency. That’s typically done by scientists and those that are professionals in those fields who will tell us whether we are in a state of emergency and based on that, I have the ability to make a declaration.”
Last time America got “expert” advice on a health crisis, it led to mask mandates (even though evidence finds they did little to stop transmission) and experimental vaccines (now reportedly linked to heart issues in men) and severe educational losses for children (who were locked up tighter than celebrities who needed a break for meals at The French Laundry and other fine outings.)
Almost certainly Public Health Emergency superpowers could allow Becerra to throw out state laws, but it wouldn’t stop there. During COVID-19, schools closed; businesses closed; churches closed; and social media enterprises increased their censorship of alternative points of view to prevent any discussion of potential cures or evidence that didn’t fit the ruling narrative.
Such a power grab can be envisioned again with faith-based schools closed or curriculum censored, social media platforms increasing their censorship of organizations like Students for Life, churches investigated and shut down, and pregnancy care centers, which provide free resources like diapers and baby formula services that Planned Parenthood has never and will never provide, shuttered.
And that’s not really speculation. While Attorney General of California, Becerra went all the way to the Supreme Court to attack the free speech rights of pregnancy care centers in NIFLA v. BECERRA.
