Trump Budget Takes Aim at Women Struggling to Make Ends Meet

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
May 23, 2017
Contact: Christie Petrone, 646-520-3504, [email protected]

Statement by National Institute for Reproductive Health President Andrea Miller

“The Trump administration’s Fiscal Year 2018 Budget levies an unconscionable attack on our nation’s women, cruelly gutting safety net programs like Medicaid and SNAP, disproportionately devastating the financial security, health, and wellbeing of women struggling to make ends meet.

“The budget delivers an unprecedented attack against abortion access by – for the first time ever – explicitly prohibiting Planned Parenthood from participating in any U.S. Department of Health and Human Services program, disqualifying it from federal funding for Medicaid, the Title X program, and the CDC National Breast and Cervical Cancer Screening program — as well as grants to prevent Zika, HIV and STIs, and sexual assault. This budget also assumes passage of the American Health Care Act, which would strip 24 million people of access to health insurance and prevent women with Medicaid coverage from accessing birth control and essential health care services at Planned Parenthood health centers.

“This ideological attack denies health care to the women who need it most, disproportionately low-income women and women of color. With insurance coverage for essential health care out of reach, millions of women and families would be faced with economic disaster. President Trump is shamefully sacrificing the health and economic well-being of millions of women to advance his anti-abortion agenda.”

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The National Institute for Reproductive Health (NIRH) builds power at the state and local levels to change public policy, galvanize public support, and normalize women’s decisions about abortion and contraception.