President Trump kicked off National Women's Health Week with a bold statement:
[W]e recognize the importance of providing women access to the best, evidence-based health information and care, and growing our medical knowledge through basic and applied research support.
That's quite an "alternative fact" when you consider all of the work that the Trump administration and GOP Congress have done since day one to set women back generations. A prime example? Just 24 hours after putting out that statement, the administration released its implementation plan for the global gag rule, a harmful policy that hijacks U.S. global health assistance in the name of anti-choice politics.
So we called Trump out. In a letter, People For the American Way joined Planned Parenthood Federation of America and more than 30 other organizations to remind him of exactly what he has done to turn the clock back for women’s health:
Unfortunately, rather than having a thoughtful and informed dialogue about how to actually improve women’s health, you have simply co-opted “women’s health” to use as a sales pitch for harmful policy.
In fact, we are in the throes of a battle with your administration and this Congress that is literally a matter of life and death for women in the United States and around the world. Indeed, while your statement on Women’s Health Week notes that “women should have access to quality prenatal, maternal, and newborn care” including a “choice in health insurance and in health care providers,” the policies of your administration do exactly the opposite. And women in America will not be fooled.
Our list of Trump's attacks on women's health includes:
- The American Health Care Act, which you have championed, blocks millions of women from accessing preventive care at Planned Parenthood health centers[.]
- You go on to suggest that you will support women’s health by investing in community health centers, but community health centers are not equipped to fully meet women’s health needs.
- In the global context, your administration not only reinstituted the “global gag rule,” restricting foreign assistance to some of the most capable providers of family planning around the world, but also greatly expanded it.
PFAW and our allies will hold Trump accountable to a true and informed commitment to women’s health, rights, and progress:
A real investment in women’s health means continuing to increase public and private insurance coverage for all women, expanding access to important women’s health services like birth control and maternity care, ensuring women’s ability to seek care at the health provider of their choice, supporting policies that provide paid family and medical leave and high-quality, affordable childcare for all families, and working to eliminate persistent disparities and discrimination in health care, particularly for immigrant women, women of color, and the LGBTQ community.