Project Syndicate: Trump’s War on Maternal Health
Anne-Marie Slaughter, president and CEO of New America and professor emerita at Princeton University, and Elizabeth Radin, lecturer at Columbia University’s Mailman School of Public Health and technical director of the PHIA Project at ICAP at Columbia University

“…Many [maternal health] success stories were made possible through international development aid for maternal health, which increased steadily from 2010 to 2015. The United States has a proud, bipartisan history of leading such efforts. … Under President Donald Trump, however, the U.S. has reversed course. For starters, it has withdrawn funding from the United Nations Population Fund (UNFPA)… Moreover, the Trump administration has expanded the ‘Mexico City Policy,’ also known as the ‘global gag rule,’… The Trump administration’s draconian approach is particularly dangerous for newborns and mothers. In many parts of the world, the grassroots organizations providing family planning services, maternal and child health care, HIV/AIDS prevention, and malaria treatment often represent the first and only line of defense for pregnant women at risk of complications. … [E]veryone should consider how much more attention and funding maternal and women’s health would get if women were more equally represented in government…” (3/19).