by Kim Bergner

This is the first in a three-part series:

Part 1: Defunding and Dismantling Women’s Health Initiatives

Part 2: Attacks on Reproductive Health Endanger Women, Infants and Families

Part 3: The Pronatalist, Fascist Agenda is Under Way

Women’s health is under attack, and this is not a fringe issue. Attacks on women’s health are direct attacks on a majority of Americans, and they harm everyone. The devaluation of women and abuses of their human rights are ubiquitous. It should be self-evident that the well-being of 51% of our population and 50% of our workforce is essential for the well-being of our families, society and the national economy. 

Federal funding for clinical care and research in women’s health has always been insufficient, and now there is deliberate action to decimate it and replace it with dangerous, anti-science, totalitarian and oppressive programs.

The American pronatalist movement echoes those in past and current fascist regimes around the world. Slashing resources for clinical care and research combined with pronatalist policies is catastrophic for all, though young, marginalized and low-income women suffer the most harm. 

The pronatalist assaults on women’s right to health, safety, education, financial security and self-determination are too often — and paradoxically — deadly for women, infants and children.

The women’s health burden

This first part of the series examines how the women’s health burden exists beyond reproductive health. That preventable burden has a profound impact on women’s quality of life and on society at large. 

The next two parts of this series will show how the Trump regime’s efforts to exclude women from the public sphere by eliminating reproductive rights is not only inhumane but also self-defeating in terms of economic growth and national strength. In these ways, it is not unlike the mass deportation of law-abiding, hard-working immigrants.

Devaluing women’s health: old news with new intensity

Compared with other areas of medicine, research in women’s health has always been underfunded. Typically, the study of human biology defaults to the male body, hindering our understanding of sex-based biological differences.

Devaluing women’s health amounts to neglect:

• In 2020, only 10.8% of the National Institutes of Health’s $45 billion budget went to women’s health.
• While 78% of people with autoimmune disease are women, only 7% of the NIH budget for rheumatoid arthritis research focuses on women.
• Women are 50% more likely to die within a year after a heart attack, and cardiovascular disease is the No. 1 killer of women. Yet only one-third of participants in clinical trials for heart disease are women.
• 66% of Alzheimer’s patients are women. Yet, 12% of NIH funding for Alzheimer’s and related dementia research focuses on women.
• Only 1% of research and development funding is allocated toward women’s health issues outside oncology.
• Only 2% of venture capital health investments are focused on women, though women are at greater risk than men for several high mortality diseases. For example, nonsmoking women are twice as likely to die of lung cancer as nonsmoking men.

We largely rely on philanthropy to fund advancements in women’s health. The Gates Foundation is the primary funder in research areas such as pharmacologic treatment for preeclampsia and the vaginal microbiome (both pertinent to safe pregnancy), the transmission of sexually transmitted infections, and new nonhormonal contraceptives. The Gates Foundation has pledged $2.5 billion to support various approaches for improving women’s health, particularly focusing on research and development. Yet, only 0.3% of philanthropic giving benefits women’s health.

Because women’s health is given low priority by the government and research institutions, giving birth in the United States is risky. We have the highest rates of maternal and infant mortality among high-income nations. Even common conditions such as preeclampsia and gestational diabetes should be better understood. Yet right after Donald Trump’s second inauguration, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention stopped collecting Pregnancy Risk Assessment Monitoring System data, so we cannot identify infant and maternal health issues needing evidence-based programs. 

Anti-DEI agenda relegates women’s health to the ‘do-not fund’ category

Under an administration that prioritizes testosterone levels in military personnel over health issues that need attention, women’s health is relegated to the forbidden diversity, equity and inclusion category. The government has scrubbed words associated with DEI, such as “women,” “Black,” and “bias” from federal agency websites and documents, and it is increasingly rejecting grant proposals using those terms. 

Conversely, federal Public Health Service Title X grantees are declining funding because of untenable restrictions that the government is placing on the grants. Canceling grants for reproductive health research affects anyone who does or doesn’t wish to become a parent.

Title X exists to provide funding to safety-net family planning providers for low-income and uninsured people. These providers also offer cancer screenings, contraceptives and testing for STIs. In enforcing Trump’s executive orders prohibiting DEI efforts, the administration froze $35 million in federal funding for Title X. Approximately 30% of Title X grantees are impacted, and the Guttmacher Institute estimates that at least 834,000 people will lose access to critical health care services in one year. 

Eliminating Title X grants for women’s health clinics harms those most in need: 15.4 million women of color who are of reproductive age live in states where abortion is banned. Black and Native American women are most likely to live in these states, and disabled, veteran and economically insecure women disproportionately live in these states. These demographic groups have the highest rates of preventable maternal mortality.

The Trump regime intends to redirect Title X funding to promote pregnancy by establishing an “infertility training center” that would focus on “educating” people about causes of infertility and holistic infertility treatments. These teachings are not science-based; they are purely political.

The Trump administration dismantled government agencies for women’s health

Contrary to its claims about defending women, and despite their pronatalist movement, the Trump regime is actively cutting grants, research and programs for the health and safety of pregnant and postpartum women. Such cuts have long-term health consequences, since complications of pregnancy are often associated with chronic disease later in life.

The Department of Health and Human Services has fired staff who oversee two critical women’s health services:

The Title V Maternal and Child Health Services Block Grant addresses the health needs of pregnant women, mothers, infants, and children. In 2023, the program helped provide services for approximately 59 million people.

The National Maternal Mental Health Hotline is a free 24/7 hotline that supports pregnant and postpartum women facing mental health challenges. Research shows that one in 12 mothers rated her mental health as fair or poor. Since its launch in 2022, it has received more than 54,173 calls and texts.

Despite the administration’s concerted effort to increase pregnancy and childbirth in the United States, the Trump administration has effectively divested from leading women’s health organizations. By imposing draconian conditions antithetical to the organizations’ missions, the regime forces organizations to decline federal funding. 

The American College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists was the first medical society to stop accepting federal funding because “[r]ecent changes in federal funding laws and regulations significantly impact ACOG’s program goals, policy positions, and ability to provide evidence-based guidance.” ACOG’s core values include DEI to combat racism and oppression in medical care.

Anti-DEI policy sets domestic and sexual violence prevention and care back 50 years

The federal government has long considered domestic and intimate partner violence a critical public health and safety issue. The CDC reports that one out of three women in the United States (43.5 million) have experienced intimate partner violence. More than half of women homicide victims are killed by a current or former partner. 

Over decades, the government established research programs, prevention agencies, investigation units, and protection and treatment services for women, and it has provided funding to nongovernment programs supporting these aims. While claiming to protect women, the Trump administration has been applying DEI bans to these organizations, defunding programs, firing employees, and narrowing eligibility.

A May 2025 article in The 19th explains that departments that dispersed grants to fund shelters were eliminated because they were “duplicative, DEI or simply unnecessary.” The team working on domestic and intimate partner violence prevention at the CDC’s Division of Violence Prevention was eliminated. Activities that frame domestic violence or sexual assault as systemic social justice issues are banned. 

By redefining who counts as a victim of domestic violence or sexual assault, the government makes it “hard for nonprofits to serve their purpose: helping people escape violence.” Some organizations have declined federal funds so they can continue to carry out their mission, but then, most lack adequate funding.

The administration has abandoned teenage girls. Of the 61 million women who reported experiencing IPV, 16 million first experienced it before they turned 18. The administration cut the budget for the CDC’s team focused on teen dating violence. 

A guide published by the government for LGBTQ+ youth, who face higher rates of dating and sexual violence, was erased after Trump signed his executive order on “radical gender ideology.”

The CDC describes major costs of IPV to society beyond the physical, mental, and sometimes lethal harm to individuals. “The lifetime economic cost of IPV-related medical care, lost productivity from paid work, and criminal justice costs, is $3.6 trillion. The cost of IPV over a victim’s lifetime is nearly $135,000 for women and over $30,000 for men.”

Economic impact beyond the burden to women

Women live longer than men and spend 25% more of their lives in debilitating health as compared to men. Investment in research on women’s health would result in “increased life years, reduced years with disease, fewer years of functional dependence, and reductions in disruptions to work productivity.”

It follows that health burdens carried by women have ripple effects throughout society. Analyses by Women’s Health Access Matters and RAND have shown that “investing an additional $350 million in research on women could generate returns of $14 billion to the U.S. economy.” According to WHAM, this number incorporates a multiplier effect that “reflects not only direct healthcare savings but also far-reaching economic benefits of improved workforce participation, greater productivity, and reduced caregiving burdens that disproportionately fall on families when women’s health needs go unmet.” 

The global economy would gain substantially by closing the women’s health gap. A report from the World Economic Forum states that “it’s possible to reach equity in health for men and women.” The report lays out how “the narrowing of the women’s health gap would allow 3.9 billion women to live healthier, higher-quality lives.” 

The report continues, “It could also allow at least $1 trillion to be pumped into economic productivity annually, which reflects how narrowing the gap would lead to fewer early deaths, fewer health conditions, extended economic and societal capacity to contribute, and increased productivity.” The biggest impact would result “from women having fewer health conditions, letting them avoid 24 million life years lost due to disability and boosting economic productivity by up to $400 billion.”

With its regressive women’s health policies, the GOP is opting for a competitive disadvantage in the global economy and a massive opportunity cost.

What Indivisibles can do

1. Join the IMC Feminist Action Team’s initiatives on September 25 and October 1 to protest the fake medical clinics that use deceptive tactics to lure under-resourced girls and women with unintended pregnancies to “crisis pregnancy centers,” where they are given dangerous, unscientific information to manipulate them into continuing their pregnancies through childbirth.
2. Support Women’s Health Access Matters, which builds the economic case for investing in women’s health by producing data-driven research and convening leaders across research, industry, finance and government to accelerate sex-based innovation that improves health outcomes and drives economic growth. 
3. Listen to Stacey Abrams’ podcast How MAHA Is Coming for Women.
4. Start power mapping.

Kim Bergner, M.D., is a pediatrician and cofounder of Indivisible Weston.

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IndivisiBlog posts reflect the opinions of the authors and do not necessarily reflect the opinions or policy positions of Indivisible Mass Coalition.