February 13, 2025
“Former U.S. Rep. Lori Chavez-DeRemer’s record on defending Life reflects her resume. Not only did she once work for Planned Parenthood, but she also did also very little work to show that her views have changed. For this reason, SFLAction calls for a better appointment to this key agency,” said Students for Life Action’s Kristan Hawkins. “The Pro-Life Generation Report Card scores for vision as well as votes, and there was too little vision for how to Make America Pro-Life Again.”
MEDIA NOTE: While in the U.S. House, former Rep. Chevez-DeRemer got a C on the Pro-Life Generation Report Card.
WASHINGTON D.C. (02-13-2025) – Students for Life Action (SFLAction) President Kristan Hawkins called the choice of former Oregon U.S. Rep. Lori Chavez-DeRemer “extremely disappointing as a pick for President Trump’s Secretary of Labor, not just for her resume but for her efforts – or lack thereof – in Congress.” As NBC notes, the nominee’s time spent working for a Planned Parenthood represents another reason to oppose the nomination, already facing push back.
While the Department of Labor might not seem to play much of a role on abortion policy, the agency actually has a large impact on workplace practices – such as through mandates demanding that abortion be accommodated. For example, during the Biden-Harris Administration, the Pregnant Worker’s Fairness Act came under attack, to change accommodations for pregnancy to include accommodations for abortion. Other laws like The Family and Medical Leave Act (FMLA) or The Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA) also can be used to force abortion policy into the workplace.
When the Supreme Court ruled that abortion was not the law of the land in the Dobbs decision, the U.S. Department of Labor’s Women’s Bureau Director Wendy Chun-Hoon observed: “The U.S. Department of Labor’s Women’s Bureau is the only federal agency authorized by Congress to represent the needs and interests of working women. As such, the Women’s Bureau is uniquely positioned to safeguard the needs of working women and advocate for their equality, which includes access to safe reproductive health options such as abortion, contraception and comprehensive maternity care.”
Using the Labor Department as a tool for mainstreaming abortion is a well known strategy, as the Harvard Law Review noted, because in a pro-abortion world view “access to abortion, contraception, and reproductive care affects who works.”
“A pro-life worldview leads to policy that helps women balance work and family, rather than making them choose one or the other. This is the new misogyny. A paternalistic society once said that women could not handle work and family, so they should stay at home. Today, the claim is the same, but women are told to stay on the job. Both sell women short, and both ignore the need to accommodate a woman’s complete life at work and at home,” said Hawkins. “The Department of Labor is not a minor agency. It impacts people every day.”
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The Pro-Life Generation (PLG) is an umbrella organization encompassing the most-cutting edge engagement opportunities for a Vote Pro-Life First Community. PLG includes Students for Life Action (SFLAction), a 501c4, along with its 501c3 sister organization, Students for Life of America (SFLA), that together make up the nation’s largest, pro-life youth organization, managing a grassroots political and policy operation engaging Americans of all ages but with a special emphasis on the largest segment of voters — the Youth Vote. Headquartered in Fredericksburg, VA, PLG/SFLA/SFLAction serves more than 1,500 groups on middle, high school, college, medical, and law school campuses in all 50 states. Our team has more conversations with this generation targeted by the abortion lobby than any other pro-life operation in the world, each week reaching more than 4 million across social media platforms and averaging 1.3 million video views. In addition to SFLA/SFLAction, PLG leads multiple initiatives to lead and serve the future of the pro-life movement including the Campaign for Abortion Free Cities, Standing With You, and the Demetree Institute for Pro-Life Advancement . Over more than 17 years, PLG CEO Kristan Hawkins has grown the operation into a nearly $20M organization, now preparing for an abortion-free America.