Twenty-Five Terrible Ways Trump Has Undermined Reproductive Health

By Daisy Stein, Natalie Green | Aug. 15, 2019, 2:13 p.m.

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The Trump-Pence reelection campaign launched “Women for Trump” in July — after more than two years of attacks on the health and rights of women from the Trump-Pence administration. The administration’s record on topics ranging from abortion access to health care coverage and sexual-assault protections is dismal — especially for women of color and women who struggle to make ends meet. 

Trump and Pence haven’t fooled anyone. We deserve leaders who work to empower people to make their own health-care choices — not an administration that attempts to control our bodies and lives.

As the “Women for Trump” campaign launches, let’s recognize just some of the reasons why people should hold Trump and Pence accountable for attacking their fundamental rights.

So …

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25 Terrible Things That the Trump-Pence Administration Is Doing:

Trump has worked to:

• Reinstate and expand the Global Gag rule, which is now in effect in more than 64 countries — risking the health and lives of women by making them choose between receiving US global health assistance and providing comprehensive reproductive healthcare.

• Issue a “gag rule" that bans health professionals who provide care through the Title X program (such as Planned Parenthood) from discussing all health options with their patients, including abortion — potentially keeping 4 million individuals from accessing affordable birth control, STI testing, cancer screenings and more. 

• Push for refusal policies that allow health care workers to impose their beliefs on others — denying patients the right to health care based on a provider’s own personal and religious beliefs. 

• Implement a rule that allows one’s boss to decide whether or not your birth control is covered by insurance.

• Increase the number of individuals paying for abortions out of pocket — which can typically cost $1500.

• Attempt to repeal the Affordable Care Act (ACA) — which could roll back significant gains in the proportion of people of color with access to health care.

Pictured: Trump in the Rose Garden in May 2017, joined by a congressional panel of “experts” on women’s health. 

• Attempt to take away the ACA’s mandatory health benefits — including maternity coverage and well-woman exams. 

• Deny multiple credible allegations of sexual misconduct from women who reported inappropriate touching and kissing. 

• Attempt to eliminate the Teen Pregnancy Prevention Program.

• Eliminate protections for survivors of sexual assault on college campuses.

• Nominate more than 150 anti-abortion judges for lifetime appointments.

• Force through two Supreme Court nominees who, according to Trump, would vote to overturn Roe v. Wade — despite credible allegations of sexual assault against one of them.

Pictured: Justices Gorsuch (l) and Kavanaugh (r), with retired Justice Kennedy — ruling soon on fundamental rights near you. 

• Allow health care discrimination against transgender individuals and people who have had an abortion.

• Push dignitaries at the UN Commission on the Status of Women to remove references to contraception, abortion, and sex education from a statement laying out global standards for gender equality. 

• Attempt to make the 1.4 million Americans who don’t identify as the gender on their birth certificate lose civil rights protections.

• Separate at least 2,737 immigrant children from their parents at the U.S.-Mexico border under the “zero tolerance policy” — a number that continues to grow.

• Detain 506 pregnant undocumented or asylum-seeking women after the government discouraged detaining pregnant women.

• Confine immigrants in facilities with dangerous conditions that include sexual assault and inadequate health care. 

• Increase deportation through the fast-tracking of removal proceedings before cases can reach an immigration judge.

• Attempt to coerce an immigrant woman in federal custody into undergoing an experimental, medically untested so-called “abortion reversal.” 

• Propose a rule that could block people from citizenship or permanent residency in the U.S. simply because they received any one of a broad range of public benefits — including health care, nutrition assistance, and public housing. 

• End asylum protection for many Central Americans trying to cross the U.S.-Mexico border, including some fleeing sexual violence or anti-LGBTQ discrimination.

Pictured: President Trump, hard at work making a neat stack of binders.

• Create a now-defunct commission to investigate bogus claims of voter fraud — in a ploy to justify vote-suppressing rules and laws that hinder turnout, disenfranchise voters of color and voters with low incomes, and aid the passage of unconstitutional abortion bans that voters oppose. 

• Spread misinformation and propaganda about abortions later in pregnancy — manufacturing controversy over situations when families are in the most devastating circumstances of their lives for political reasons. 

• Endanger the personal safety of four women of color in the U.S. House of Representatives by taunting that they, who all are citizens of the United States, should ‘go back to the countries they came from.’

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Since day one, the Trump-Pence administration has aggressively targeted the health, rights, and bodily autonomy of women, people of color, and people with low incomes.

Trump’s policies hurt all women, and all people in the United States, including his own supporters. Sexual and reproductive health and rights will be a top issue in 2020. Women — by voting — will decide the fate of this administration.

Tags: women's health, Donald Trump