With the Senate Finance Committee preparing to interrogate Dr. Mehmet Oz, Trump’s nominee to be Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services administrator, Friday morning, one Senate Republican says Oz’s record on transgenderism and abortion are “concerning.”
Sen. Josh Hawley, R-Mo., told EWTN that Oz “promoted, I know, trans doctors and activists on his show a number of times.”
“My hope would be he would come into alignment with the President’s position,” Hawley said.
“The president has been so strong on this issue, the trans issue in particular, getting men out of women’s sports, asking Congress to ban trans surgeries and treatments for minors, which I think is absolutely correct.”
On The Dr. Oz Show in 2015, Oz featured teen transgender activist Jazz Jennings. During his interview with Jennings, Oz told Jenning’s mother, “I love the support you’ve given your daughter. It’s wonderful. And you can see the beautiful young woman she’s becoming because of it.”
Oz also interviewed fathers who “had become moms,” through their transgender identity.
Oz’s views on abortion have evolved over the last two decades since he became a prominent figure in American public life.
In a 2008 interview, Oz said he was “not socially conservative,” and that view extended to abortion. “We should not be creating obstacles during the difficult time that women have when trying to terminate a pregnancy,” Oz told the National Review of Medicine.
Oz criticized pro-life policies as recently as 2019. When Alabama signed a complete abortion ban into law, Oz asked, “Is this really the way they want to spend their time?”
Trump had a different reaction to the Alabama abortion ban. “I am very strongly pro-life, with the three exceptions – rape, incest and protecting the life of the mother – the same position taken by Ronald Reagan,” the president said at the time. “We have come very far in the last two years with 105 wonderful new federal judges (many more to come), two great new supreme court justices … and a whole new and positive attitude about the right to life.”
In May 2022, Trump-appointed Supreme Court justices undid Roe v. Wade with their decision in Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization.
Dobbs dropped while Oz was running for Senate in Pennsylvania, and he reacted positively to the overturning of Roe. Oz posted on X that the Supreme Court was “right” to overturn Roe, which was “wrongly decided.”
Later that year, in October, Oz said there “should not be involvement from the federal government in how states decide their abortion decisions.”
“I sure hope that Dr. Oz is going to adopt [President Trump’s] positions. I’d be real concerned if he didn’t,” Hawley said. “I think he’s got a hearing coming up, so I imagine he’ll be asked.”
And the Missouri senator would be correct: Oz, the doctor turned TV personality turned Republican senate candidate turned Trump CMS nominee, will appear in front of the Senate Finance Committee Friday morning.
