Trump's refugee director is reportedly writing an anti-abortion book, and we wish we were surprised

Abortion rights have faced countless threats under the Trump administration, and unfortunately, there’s no sign this will stop anytime soon. Now, Scott Lloyd, the Director of the Office of Refugee Resettlement (ORR), is reportedly working on a book that promotes his anti-abortion views.

Politico reports that Lloyd has been writing the book during his time in the Trump administration, despite the fact that government employees are discouraged from writing books about their positions on political issues. An anonymous source told the magazine that Lloyd’s work will tell the story of his own “awakening” to push for anti-abortion policies.

Before he began his tenure with the ORR, Lloyd reportedly worked as an anti-abortion activist. And in 2017, Mother Jones reported that Lloyd had compared abortion to the Holocaust in a law school essay at Catholic University. In the same essay, he also wrote that he was against Roe v. Wade and didn’t support abortion even in “cases of rape, incest, or danger to women.” After this revelation, an HHS spokesperson told The Hill that Lloyd had “explained he does not let his religion guide his job as ORR director.”

However, in October 2017, Lloyd came under fire for trying to prevent a 17-year-old undocumented immigrant in U.S. custody from getting an abortion. According to The Washington Post, he also “personally intervened” to prevent detained immigrants from getting abortions. As a result, the ACLU filed a lawsuit against administration officials including Lloyd, and a judge ruled that the teen could terminate her pregnancy.

It’s clear that contrary to what the HHS has said, Lloyd’s personal views do affect his job—and the lives of women—and that is unacceptable.