Even for President Donald Trump and Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr., it was a shocking press conference. Last week’s announcement was supposed to be about how these two science-haters had somehow discovered the cause of autism — spoiler: they didn’t — but really, the main theme of the day was that women are lazy, spoiled brats who need to be disciplined by two men who have faced accusations of chronic adultery and sexual assault. After falsely blaming autism on women who take Tylenol while pregnant, Trump insisted that women should “tough it out” rather than take the pills, which are the only over-the-counter pain relievers doctors believe are safe during pregnancy.
But as gross as that was, Kennedy still offered the most vile comment during the event, when he appeared to casually mock victims of sexual abuse. “Some of our friends like to say we should believe all women,” he said, before insisting that the “friends” he mentioned must be hypocrites because they don’t believe women who falsely claim vaccines cause autism.
Kennedy, of course, was referencing the slogan “believe women,” which advocates for victims of sexual violence crafted to reflect the studies that show over 90% of rape allegations are true. “Believe all women,” in contrast, is a sarcastic phrase typically deployed by rape apologists to falsely suggest that feminists want men to be imprisoned without evidence.
Feminists have never used the phrase “believe all women,” which is a misogynist insult. In Kennedy’s mouth, it became even more sinister — and not just because he was accused of sexual assault by a family babysitter in the 1990s. The secretary was attempting to frame his attacks on children’s health care as if they were a crusade for women’s rights. Instead, he insulted women’s intelligence by suggesting that a rape victim talking about her own experiences deserves no more respect than former Playboy model Jenny McCarthy claiming to have superior medical knowledge than actual doctors.
Kennedy’s tactics owe a lot to the anti-abortion movement, which spent decades repackaging their efforts to destroy women’s rights as a crusade to “protect” them from supposedly evil doctors eager to inflict abortions on them.
But Kennedy did not invent this schtick of trying to rebrand misogyny as feminism through trolling and feigning “concern” for women and children’s safety. His tactics owe a lot to the anti-abortion movement, which spent decades repackaging their efforts to destroy women’s rights as a crusade to “protect” them from supposedly evil doctors eager to inflict abortions on them. The Christian right used fake science — and even faker “concern” for women — to restrict access to abortion, and then used those lies to end abortion rights altogether. Kennedy has now adopted the same techniques not only for his anti-vaccine crusade, but also to attack health care that is vital for pregnant women.
In the years before Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health ushered in a new era of abortion bans, anti-choicers relied on pseudoscience to say abortion was dangerous and needed to be restricted for women’s own good. Made-up accusations that abortion causes depression or breast cancer were employed to justify lengthy waiting periods or unnecessary red tape that only served to shut down abortion clinics. By slowly chipping away at access, Republicans were able to quietly destroy reproductive access without most of the public knowing it was happening.
Want more Amanda Marcotte on politics? Sign up for her free newsletter, Standing Room Only, now also on YouTube or wherever you get your podcasts.
Kennedy’s anti-vaccine strategy is too similar to be a coincidence. He has disseminated false claims that vaccines are dangerous or that they cause autism. He has used his own fake science to justify slowly chipping away at immunization access. Kennedy began by targeting the COVID-19 vaccine and putting in place confusing federal protocols that have made the shot much harder to get — even while he has denied that’s what he’s doing. HHS is now expanding the net to include a form of the chicken pox vaccine and even a version of the hepatitis B vaccine. The theory appears to be that if they can restrict newer or less understood immunizations, it will make it easier to eventually attack higher profile vaccines, like those that prevent measles or polio.
But Kennedy’s link to the anti-abortion world isn’t just about borrowing strategy. He also has a special vendetta against the bodily autonomy of women, especially pregnant women. The Tylenol announcement broke through to a lot of people, in large part because there’s widespread experience with and acceptance of the painkiller. The attention made it easier for people to see how Trump and Kennedy view women with contempt, as their critics have long said. But it’s far from the only essential medication Kennedy wants to deny to pregnant women.
The Tylenol press conference was such a political disaster that other Dr. Mehmet Oz, a TV doctor who now heads the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services, was deployed to soften the message. “Of course take it if a doctor says you need it. But don’t take it on your own without thinking twice about it,” he told CBS News late last week.
Trump, however, would not allow his staff to clean up the mess for him and Kennedy. On Friday, the man who once suggested injecting household cleaners into the lungs could cure COVID-19, took to Truth Social to impart his alleged wisdom. “Pregnant Women, DON’T USE TYLENOL UNLESS ABSOLUTELY NECESSARY, DON’T GIVE TYLENOL TO YOUR YOUNG CHILD FOR VIRTUALLY ANY REASON,” this self-appointed medical expert raved. He then went on to reject the widespread medical consensus about childhood vaccines, offering “advice” that will only lead to children unnecessarily getting measles, rubella, and hepatitis B.
We need your help to stay independent
Podcast host Joe Rogan also weighed in, demonstrating that this Tylenol obsession is not about science, but about men who are obsessed with controlling women. Pregnant women have been posting videos of themselves taking Tylenol, and Rogan is angry that they won’t obey the dictates of Daddy Trump. “This science came from Harvard,” Rogan scolded. “That’s where the study came from. He’s not making things up.”
Rogan, a regular conduit for medical misinformation, is once again distorting the facts in his knee-jerk hostility to liberal women. As actual experts have repeatedly pointed out, there are many conflicting studies, some of which suggest prolonged use of Tylenol may not be good. But the actual medical establishment — which understands science better than a third-rate comedian, brain worm-sporting nepo baby, and guy who doesn’t realize why bleach injections are dangerous —show that the conditions that acetaminophen treats are far more dangerous to mom and baby than the hypothetical effects claimed by Kennedy.
Over the summer, a Kennedy-aligned panel at the Food and Drug Administration fear-mongered about anti-depressants, blaming children’s heart conditions and — as usual — autism on mothers who use the drugs during pregnancy. In response, the American College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists (ACOG) released a statement declaring these drugs “are safe in pregnancy and that most do not increase the risk of birth defects.” What is dangerous, ACOG argued, is “untreated depression in pregnancy,” a condition linked to “substance use, preterm birth, preeclampsia, limited engagement in medical care and self-care, low birth weight, impaired attachment with their infant, and even suicide.”
The pointless rules and policing of pregnancy from Kennedy come hand-in-hand with Republican efforts to make sure women can’t say no to childbirth. As Jessica Valenti recently reported, the same tactics being deployed against vaccines, Tylenol and anti-depressants are also being used as a pretext to take away the abortion pill. Citing yet another phony study, Kennedy wrote a letter claiming to have developed “concerns about the safety of mifepristone,” the medication used in pill-based abortions. So now the FDA is going to “review” abortion pills, just like Kennedy’s acolytes have “reviewed” other medications he doesn’t like — which always seems to lead to a preordained, false conclusion that they are not safe.
There’s a theme here: Kennedy is suspicious of medication that safely relieves women’s pain. Mifepristone makes abortions safer and less painful, and without access, women will likely still abort pregnancies at home. They’ll just suffer more. Tylenol and anti-depressants protect the health of women and their babies.
But these restrictions will cause women to endure more than unnecessary pain. Losing these medications can mean serious harm or death from sepsis, strokes or suicide. Instead of encouraging women to “tough it out,” Kennedy and Trump should be focused on saving lives.
