Washington, D.C. — The Trump administration is dismantling programs to prevent, treat, and cure diseases that affect women and threatening access to basic reproductive and maternal health care—and the One Big Beautiful Bill Act (OBBBA) will make things worse. A new Center for American Progress column reviews how the Trump administration’s restructuring and gutting of the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, promotion of false information and conspiracy theories, and cuts to the Medicaid program taken together threaten women’s reproductive health. Some key takeaways from this column include:
- The Trump administration’s cuts to public health infrastructure threaten programs that support women and healthy pregnancies: The Trump administration gutted the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), where the majority of CDC employees in the Division of Reproductive Health—which promotes reproductive, maternal, and infant health—have been terminated. Cuts to the division included the branch devoted to women’s health and fertility, the elimination of the team that updates and disseminates contraceptive best practices to providers, and the elimination of the CDC’s Assistive Reproductive Technology Surveillance team.
- The Trump administration’s federal health research agenda threatens basic prevention, treatment, and cures for diseases that affect women’s reproductive health: The Trump administration’s cuts to research on menopause, uterine fibroids, and pregnancy will have an outsize impact on women’s reproductive health. These cuts—under the guise of efficiency—would produce the exact opposite: One estimate found an investment of $350 million in research focused on women could generate $14 billion for the economy by increasing longevity, reducing disease, and lessening work disruptions.
- The OBBBA threatens financing for reproductive and maternal health: The OBBBA includes significant changes to the Medicaid program and will undermine the Affordable Care Act (ACA). The Congressional Budget Office’s latest projections indicate that up to 16 million more people would lose their health insurance by 2034 due to the law and upcoming ACA changes. Women of color, particularly Black women and Latinas, are more likely to rely on Medicaid for reproductive health care—including 31 percent of Black women and 27 percent of Hispanic or Latina women, compared with just 16 percent of white women.
“Women across the country will be worse off because of the Trump administration’s attacks on women’s health care, including drastic cuts to the Medicaid program, defunding of Planned Parenthood, and diminished access to health care,” said Kierra Jones, senior policy analyst for the Women’s Initiative at CAP and co-author of the column
“Dismantling programs and environmental protections that help identify, prevent, and treat diseases and conditions that disproportionately affect women threatens women’s reproductive health, well-being and safety,” said Jill Rosenthal, director of public health policy at CAP and co-author of the column.
Read the column: “The Trump Administration is Endangering Women’s Reproductive Health” by Jill Rosenthal and Kierra B. Jones
For more information or to speak with an expert, please contact Sarah Nadeau at [email protected].