Donald Trump Tries and Fails to Co-Opt Women’s Health Week
For Immediate Release: May 15, 2017
Washington, DC -- This week is National Women’s Health Week, a time set aside to empower women to make their health a priority and encourage women to prioritize their health, including getting preventive care such as regular checkups and cancer screenings. The White House chose to mark the occasion by pushing the American Health Care Act – legislation that would prohibit patients from coming to Planned Parenthood, the country’s largest women’s health care provider and educator; imperil maternity care; allow women to be charged more for health care; and limit women’s access to birth control, cancer screenings, and other basic care – and then releasing a press statement declaring the need to make women’s health a priority.
Planned Parenthood’s Executive Vice President, Dawn Laguens, released the following statement:
Donald Trump is correct – ensuring affordable, accessible and quality health care is critical to improving women’s health. If Donald Trump wants to live up to his words for Women’s Health Week, he should reject the Republican health care repeal bill and truly invest in women’s access to health care.
“As the New York Times editorial board recently stated, ‘If (the American Health Care Act) becomes law, it will harm millions of Americans, including the poor, sick and elderly. But it will be especially disastrous for women.’
“Women’s health has been in the crosshairs from day one of this administration – it has expanded the Global Gag Rule, appointed a hostile and extreme anti-contraception activist to oversee the nation’s only program for birth control, and signed into law an executive order that directly threatens access to birth control. Plus, the administration is pushing for passage of the American Health Care Act, the worst legislation for women’s health in a generation. It threatens maternity coverage; would allow insurance companies to charge women more for health care again; would make it harder for women to access birth control, cancer screenings, and regular check-ups; and would tell millions of women they can no longer turn to Planned Parenthood, their provider of choice.
“Plain and simple, Donald Trump is trying to co-opt women’s health with empty promises and hollow sound bites. There is no way to advance women’s health by making it harder to access health care or prohibiting women from turning to their trusted health care providers.
Media have already pointed out the cognitive dissonance between the Administration’s words and it’s actions:
Refinery 29: Trump's Latest Comments Show He Is Blind To What Actually Helps Women
Fortune: President Trump Says He Wants Paid Family Leave and More Women’s Health Care