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On his first day in office, President Donald Trump rescinded a series of Executive Orders from Joe Biden’s presidency. The process of rolling back the extremely liberal social agenda the Biden-Harris administration had as their public policy priority will take time. Many federal agency regulations put into place brick by brick over the last few years need to be amended or replaced. In this context, we should be grateful to federal officials for some of their last actions withdrawing several proposed new federal agency regulations that had bad ethical components. I must admit to being quite surprised to be writing this, but after almost four years of non-stop promotion of contraception, abortion, and radical gender ideology, the Biden-Harris administration admitted defeat in the end.  

A disheartening fact of modern life in the US is that we are more governed in our professional and private lives by unelected bureaucrats who craft binding regulations than by laws enacted by our representatives. Technically, the federal rules are supposed to merely implement laws, but they can and do put a liberal or conservative “spin” on legislation. Happily, there are some checks on federal rulemaking, including public comment periods and reviews of the expected impacts of the proposed rules. Many Catholic and conservative institutions have actively commented on and protested the bad elements of new federal regulations and even, at times, obtained some positive modifications in the final rules.

A key fact here is that the process of making, modifying, and rescinding federal agency rules takes time and effort. The comment period alone can go for 90 days. That is why it is very good news that several federal agencies withdrew over two dozen proposed rules in the final weeks of the Biden presidency.

The Health and Human Services (HHS), Labor, and Treasury Departments withdrew their proposed rule that would have cancelled the exemptions that companies could use to refuse to comply with the “Contraceptive Mandate” imposed by federal rules. Most will recall this scandalous government mandate that employee health insurance pay for immoral birth control. This was a rule imposed as part of the implementation of the “Obamacare” Affordable Care Act, even though it was not in the text of the law itself. It led to court cases by the Little Sisters of the Poor that went all the way up to the US Supreme Court and went back again over a period of many years.

Similarly, HHS, Labor, and the Treasury Departments withdrew in January their proposed new “Over-the-Counter Contraceptive Mandate Rule.” This rule was proposed late last year as part of the political agenda of Vice President Kamala Harris as she ran as the democratic presidential candidate. It would have required health plans, and therefore employers, to provide free coverage of all over-the-counter contraceptives that can be obtained without a prescription. The Biden-Harris Administration had a real obsession with forcing employers and institutions to pay for artificial birth control.

Several recently withdrawn proposed rules fell in the “Gender Agenda” category. The Federal Department of Education had imposed regulations requiring educational institutions to allow biological males who “self-identify” as female to compete in women’s sports. They then sought to go further by prohibiting vaguely defined “discrimination” based on sexual orientation and gender identity. Sometimes the craziness reached even more absurd levels, such as the withdrawn proposed federal rule that would have replaced “mother” and “father” with “parent” or “parentage” in every single place the terms occurred in regulations on child support services. From their perspective, it was offensive and discriminatory to refer to parents as mothers or fathers. The “Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion,” or DEI agenda, which discriminates on the basis of race and gender, caused a backlash from voters and the corporate world. That is now being eliminated.

Seeking every possible way to make life difficult for pro-life women’s and pregnancy resource centers, the Biden-Harris administration sought to modify regulations for the Temporary Assistance for Needy Families (TANF) program. The proposed rule deliberately and specifically singled out pregnancy centers as an example of the type of organization that would not qualify for federal funding. The zeal with which the pro-abortion side attacks pregnancy centers and pro-life sidewalk counselors seems demonic to me. They rage that some mothers are saved at the last possible moment from the jaws of the abortion dragon that anticipated devouring the child, to use biblical language.

The above serves to underscore the immense ethical importance of national elections. The person in the White House appoints the heads of federal agencies and over 4,000 other federal employees. They, in turn, largely make the rules and regulations that govern our lives in the US. Thankfully, when particularly egregious violations of the clear intent or scope of laws are attempted, these federal rules can be challenged in court. Many of the Biden regulations were in fact enjoined and prevented from being implemented by federal judges. This important check on raw political power nevertheless points back to the fact that the federal judiciary and Supreme Court Justices are appointed by the president. In many ways the old dictum “personnel is policy” rings true. A key strategic fact is that one can never win a struggle simply by playing defense. Those with ethically sound consciences must not only resist bad regulations but make and enforce good ones. I pray that this process will be successful soon.

Joseph Meaney received his PhD in bioethics from the Catholic University of the Sacred Heart in Rome. His doctoral program was founded by the late Elio Cardinal Sgreccia and linked to the medical school and Gemelli teaching hospital. His dissertation topic was Conscience and Health Care: A Bioethical Analysis. Dr. Meaney earned his master’s in Latin American studies, focusing on health care in Guatemala, from the University of Texas at Austin. He graduated from the University of Dallas with a BA in history and a concentration in international studies. The Benedict XVI Catholic University in Trujillo, Peru, awarded Dr. Meaney an honorary visiting professorship. The University of Dallas bestowed on him an honorary doctorate in Humane Letters in 2022.