Red Flag #2: Restricted Access to Reproductive Health Care in the U.S.
Red Flag #2:
Cut Public Health Programs and Censored Critical Reproductive Health Information
What’s happened?
The Trump administration has dismantled key parts of the public health system vital for reproductive care. Indiscriminate funding freezes, mass firings, and the termination of critical research initiatives have hampered the Department of Health and Human Services’ (HHS) essential operations and imperiled domestic reproductive and maternal health programs.
Why does it matter?
- Need reproductive health care? The Trump administration has decimated the workforce responsible for vital initiatives that are supposed to safeguard your health.
- HHS Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. and Elon Musk’s Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE) have instituted mass layoffs across HHS public health agencies, including the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) and Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC). An FDA employee described the cuts as a “bloodbath”; 20,000 positions were expected to be eliminated in total—roughly a quarter of the HHS workforce.
- Cuts include the majority of employees in the CDC’s Division of Reproductive Health. According to one former staffer, all of the team’s work was essentially “eliminated overnight” because “[t]here was no plan in place to sunset any of it, or to transfer […] expertise over to someone else or to train folks.”
- The team tasked with compiling and publishing data focusing on abortion access—such as how many patients are getting abortions, where, and with what methods—has been eliminated, leaving 2023 numbers “sitting in inboxes and Teams folders” and stymying efforts to understand the impact of state abortion bans in the aftermath of Dobbs.
- The Trump administration also erased contraception guidelines and pages related to HIV testing directed specifically toward LGBTQ+ people, along with entire data sets of research, from the CDC website. While some information has since been restored, the pages continue to note that the “CDC’s website is being modified to comply with President Trump’s Executive Orders” regarding so-called “gender ideology” and diversity, equity, and inclusion.
Who did President Trump put in charge?
Robert F. Kennedy, Jr.
HHS Secretary
As HHS Secretary, Kennedy is the chief policymaker for the Department of Health and Human Services. In his confirmation hearings, Kennedy outlined his dangerous to-do list, readily agreeing to reinstate the Title X domestic gag rule, prohibit research using tissue derived from abortions, restrict access to medication abortion via telehealth, hire “pro-life people” to serve as his deputies throughout HHS, end abortion later in pregnancy, support religious refusals of care, and eliminate “federal funding for abortions here or abroad.”
Who did President Trump put in charge?
Elon Musk
Senior Advisor to the President
The de facto leader of DOGE, President Trump appears to have given Musk unlimited and unchecked authority to dismantle entire government departments and programs, slash agency funding and cancel contracts, and access sensitive government data and resources. Musk routinely uses extreme rhetoric about abortion and spreads misinformation about hormonal birth control on his highly visible social media platform.
Who did President Trump put in charge?
Dr. Martin Makary
FDA Commissioner
As FDA Commissioner, Dr. Makary leads the agency responsible for regulating medication abortion, contraception, fertility drugs, labor and delivery medications, and treatment for sexually transmitted infections. During his confirmation hearing, he refused to commit to protecting access to medication abortion despite decades of research proving that mifepristone is extraordinarily safe and effective.
- Need information about your rights or how to access reproductive health care? The Trump administration has erased this information.
- Within hours of taking office, the Trump administration took down ReproductiveRights.gov, a vital resource that provided information about patient rights and how to access reproductive health care, including abortion.
- The administration has also censored other resources about your rights, including by scrubbing the HHS website of any mention of policies that protect abortion care and by removing critical information for patients and providers about federal privacy protections related to reproductive health care.
- Pregnant or planning to be? President Trump has shut down the federal data collection system put in place to safeguard your health.
- Without public notice, the Trump administration has cut the entire team running the CDC’s Pregnancy Risk Assessment Monitoring System (PRAMS), a critical public health program that has collected maternal and infant health data since 1988. The program tracked everything from rates of postpartum depression or anxiety in new parents to elevated risks of Sudden Infant Death Syndrome and the impact of second-hand smoke on babies.
- PRAMS was established to identify disparities in health outcomes, particularly among Black and Native American mothers and infants, and to guide efforts to reduce maternal and infant mortality.
Who did President Trump put in charge?
Dr. David Weldon
WITHDRAWN
Nominee for CDC Director
President Trump’s top choice to lead the CDC, Weldon is a former member of Congress who voted in favor of dozens of bills restricting reproductive rights and promoted junk science theories about fetal pain and connections between abortion and breast cancer. Weldon’s positions are so extreme that the White House was forced to withdraw his nomination.
- Rely on IVF to start or grow your family? President Trump has cut off vital research on assisted reproduction.
- Within days of promising to be the “fertilization president,” President Trump fired the entire division in charge of the National Assisted Reproductive Technology (ART) Surveillance System that provides patients with essential information about in vitro fertilization (IVF) and other ART options, including the success rates of every fertility clinic across the country. This work helped push the medical community to adopt safer and more effective IVF methods.
- While the President has signed an Executive Order on IVF, to date, the administration has done nothing to ensure that IVF care is actually more accessible or affordable.
Who did President Trump put in charge?
Heidi Overton
Deputy Assistant to the President for Domestic Policy
President Trump picked Overton, who has been celebrated by anti-abortion advocates for her work to advance President Trump’s “pro-life policy agenda,” to serve as the Deputy Assistant to the President for Domestic Policy. She advises the President on reproductive health care policy, including IVF, abortion, and maternal health. Overton called the overturning of Roe v. Wade a “huge victory” and has pushed false information about the safety of medication abortion.
