RFK Jr’s key marketing campaign pledges as he comes out in full help of abortion | EUROtoday

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Robert F Kennedy Jr, an unbiased presidential candidate, seems to be at odds along with his working mate this week over abortion coverage.

Nicole Shanahan, his choose for vice chairman, introduced she plans to donate to a staunch abortion opponent in GOP Representative Thomas Massie of Kentucky. This announcement comes after the duo each stated the federal government shouldn’t regulate abortions.

But all through his marketing campaign, the nephew of President John F Kennedy has outlined a number of insurance policies — lots of which have generated backlash from political opponents and subject-matter consultants.

Here’s a breakdown of three main coverage proposals from the RFK Jr-Shanahan marketing campaign as we method the 2024 election:

Abortion

RFK Jr’s place on abortion — a keystone difficulty within the upcoming presidential election after the Supreme Court gave states the facility to ban it in 2022 — has been considerably hazy.

On Thursday, RFK Jr informed NBC News that he believes the federal government shouldn’t dictate abortion coverage and that reproductive rights needs to be determined by particular person girls.

“I think we have to leave it to the women rather than the state,” RFK Jr informed the outlet when requested if he endorsed permitting full-term abortions.

Last 12 months, RFK Jr informed the identical outlet he would need to ban abortions for ladies who’ve been pregnant for greater than three months. However, NBC News stated his marketing campaign later walked again the feedback, saying he doesn’t help laws banning abortion.

On his web site, RFK Jr says he’ll champion a “massive subsidized healthcare initiative,” which he suggests will “dramatically reduce” the variety of abortions within the US.

“A lot of women, when they get pregnant, feel they can’t afford to have a baby. There isn’t a lot of support to raise a child in this society…We have to make our society as welcoming as possible to children and to motherhood,” his web site reads.

By distinction, Ms Shanahan has beforehand stated that she rejects “anyone” having management over girls’s our bodies whereas sustaining she doesn’t “feel right” about terminating a being pregnant if each the mom and child are wholesome.

Healthcare

RFK Jr typically touts that he needs to “end the chronic disease epidemic.”

“The current generation is the sickest in American history,” the candidate writes on his web site. “When John F. Kennedy was president, 6% of American kids had a chronic health condition. Today it is 60%.”

The unbiased candidate vows to speculate authorities funds in additional analysis on persistent ailments. RFK Jr additionally says he’ll help a transition from a “toxic, degenerative industrial food system to an organic, regenerative system of agriculture.”

Despite his concern over persistent well being circumstances, the candidate can be a staunch opponent of the Covid-19 vaccine and has unfold misinformation about its security and efficacy.

RFK Jr’s organisation, Children’s Health Defense, has advocated in opposition to vaccinations, together with by spreading the baseless declare that vaccines trigger autism. In his ebook, The Real Anthony FauciRFK Jr additionally falsely claimed that Anthony Fauci colluded with Microsoft founder Bill Gates to magnify the extent of the Covid-19 pandemic.

Spreading this misinformation resulted in Meta deactivating his Instagram account in 2021.

He additionally unfold a baseless, racist and antisemitic conspiracy concept in regards to the Covid-19 virus final 12 months, claiming the virus targets “Caucasians and Black people” whereas “Ashkenazi Jews and [Chinese people]” are essentially the most immune.

“The claim that Covid-19 was a bioweapon created by the Chinese or Jews to attack Caucasians and Black people is deeply offensive and feeds into sinophobic and antisemitic conspiracy theories,” in accordance with a press release from the Anti-Defamation League on the time.

The local weather disaster

RFK Jr, a former environmental lawyer, claims he would be the “best environmental president in American history.”

“As an independent, Kennedy will break through the divisive political arguments that keep us distracted while Republicans and Democrats allow corporate interests to strip-mine our natural heritage,” his web site reads.

His proposed insurance policies embrace decreasing poisonous chemical air pollution, defending wildlife from “corporate abuse,” adopting an improved wildfire administration plan, and ending “the corporate capture of environmental regulatory agencies.”

However, his colleagues within the area have informed a unique story.

Last month, twelve environmental teams revealed an open letter calling for Americans to “reject” RFK Jr and “the toxic beliefs he promotes before it’s too late.” The checklist of co-signers contains the political arm of the Natural Resources Defense Council, the place Mr Kennedy used to work.

Erich Pica, government director of the co-signing organisation Friends of the Earth, stated it’s uncommon for therefore many environmental organisations to return collectively on a selected difficulty.

“You don’t see that many open letters, with that many groups, representing that spectrum of the community, all saying the same thing in unison at the same time,” Mr Pica informed The Independent in April.

RFK Jr has additionally made enemies in environmental circles after criticising President Joe Biden’s Inflation Reduction Act, a landmark piece of local weather laws that funnelled billions in the direction of numerous green-energy initiatives.