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Dear City of,
We've always known Donald Trump and his anti-choice allies weren't going to stop at abortion. Now, they’re attempting to rip away access to birth control.
This week, Secretary Kennedy testified before my subcommittee on the Department of Health and Human Services’ (HHS) FY27 budget that eliminates Title X, the program that gives over 2 million low-income people access to birth control. When I pressed him on this incomprehensible attack on health care, he seemed unaware of how many women use birth control and how much the American public benefits from this critical program.
I then asked the Secretary a simple question: will you commit to protecting people's access to the contraceptive method of their choice? Shockingly, he refused to answer.
Cutting Americans’ access to birth control isn’t the only reason I oppose the administration’s latest budget proposal. Their plan also eliminates the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention’s Safe Motherhood Program, which I just got reauthorized with bipartisan support when it was signed into law in February. Our country is facing a serious maternal mortality crisis, where Black women are far more likely to die during childbirth than white women. This program tracks maternal deaths and helps us figure out how to stop them — and 80% of them are preventable. If this program is cut, we will lose valuable data on how many mothers we're losing and how to save them.
Further, the administration’s whole budget cuts HHS by 12% — including a $3.5 billion cut to the National Institutes of Health and $437 million from the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services — the people who make Medicare work. Under Trump and Secretary Kennedy’s watch, America has ceded its role as a global leader on health care. Diseases that had been eradicated are back, with new infections rising every day. And we are no longer the gold standard in biomedical research, as we are losing talented scientists to other countries, even to our foreign adversaries.
Here's what upsets me: this administration says they must cut birth control access and maternal health programs to save money. Meanwhile, they've added trillions to the deficit with tax breaks for wealthy Americans and corporations, and they're burning $1 billion a day on an illegal war with Iran. I’m fighting to invest that money here — in health care, housing, and programs for kids and families.
This week also marked 27 years since the Columbine shooting. I never thought that nearly three decades later, we'd still be living through these horrific tragedies. From Shreveport to Littleton, we need stronger gun violence prevention laws, and the Republican majority needs to let us vote. Enough is Enough.
Sincerely,
Diana DeGette
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