Since January 20th, Donald Trump and Elon Musk have unleashed chaos across the country — a coordinated attack that makes one thing clear: They are willing to do everything in their power to derail the lives of Black women. This is the latest battle in Trump’s ongoing war against us. For years, we’ve heard him vow to slash Medicaid, rip away reproductive freedom, destroy safety net programs, strip workplace protections, and choke off funding for small businesses. And every time we hear those threats, Black women know exactly who will pay the price.
That is why this Black Maternal Health Week, we are going to talk about what’s really at stake for women like me:
Slashing Health Care and Threatening Our Lives:
- From FY18 through FY21, four consecutive budgets in his first term, Trump proposed hundreds of billions in cuts to Medicaid, and he’s doubling down in his second term.
- Just last week, Trump’s waterboys in Congress passed a budget resolution that will gut Medicaid to bankroll yet another tax giveaway for billionaires. That decision will devastate Black communities and Black mothers. Medicaid covers 40% of all births in the U.S., and two-thirds of all Black births.
- Research even shows that expanding Medicaid reduces maternal deaths, so imagine the devastation if Trump and Elon Musk follow through on these plans — Black women and babies will pay the price with their lives.
Attacking Reproductive Health Care and Maternal Health Research:
- In his first few months in office, Donald Trump has continued to target reproductive health care. Most recently, he slashed tens of millions in funding for Planned Parenthood, accusing them of violating federal civil rights law by promoting DEI, leaving millions of women in a lurch.
- Nearly half of Planned Parenthood patients are from communities of color, including more than 360,000 Black Americans every year. For many Black women, it’s one of the only places to access essential services like cancer screenings, contraception, and STI testing.
- As part of his crusade against racial equity, Trump has ordered the elimination of two out of the three branches of the CDC Division of Reproductive Health, crippling vital research into maternal mortality and health disparities.
- Experts are already ringing the alarm, arguing that dismantling DEI initiatives will harm critical research on maternal health disparities and other issues that disproportionately impact Black women, but of course, Trump doesn’t care.
- Trump and his extremists have also cut funding for a number of National Institutes of Health studies examining maternal mortality and health disparities among Black mothers.
Ripping Away Nutrition, Food, and Housing:
- Trump and House Republicans are now trying to dismantle key nutrition and housing programs. Their plan to slash SNAP benefits is a direct hit on communities already struggling with food insecurity — and that means Black families will disproportionately suffer.
- Black Americans already face higher rates of food insecurity than white Americans, and SNAP is one of the few programs proven to help bridge that gap.
- WIC — a lifeline for pregnant women and new mothers — is also on the chopping block, which would make qualifying for this critical program that provides vital nutrition and health support during and after pregnancy even harder.
- At the same time, fair housing protections are under assault. Trump’s cuts to the Department of Housing and Urban Development’s (HUD’s) fair housing programs threaten to let housing discrimination run wild, making it harder for millions of Black Americans to find safe, affordable places to live.
- The Department of Housing and Urban Development has been gutted, with tens of millions in funding cuts and a forecasted 77% reduction in the Office of Fair Housing and Equal Opportunity’s staff — the very people responsible for enforcing civil rights protections in housing.
Hamstringing Economic Prosperity:
- For decades, federal jobs have provided Black workers with a pathway to economic mobility, gainful employment and job security. And under Trump, we have seen the elimination of tens of thousands of these jobs.
- Black Americans make up 19% of the permanent federal workforce, and for Black women, the stakes are even higher. Our representation in federal jobs is twice our representation in the overall U.S. population, making up 12% of the federal workforce while only representing roughly 6.6% of the U.S. labor force.
- For Black entrepreneurship, the systematic dismantling of Small Business Administration (SBA) programs that ensure Black women have a fair shake will lead to a significant decline in access to the very resources that minority and women entrepreneurs rely on to build and grow their businesses.
Whether talking about health care, housing, jobs, or small business support, Trump’s second-term agenda is an all-out attack on Black women and mothers. And we’re not going to stand by and let it happen. As a proud member of Congress representing Ohio’s 3rd District, Associate Chair of the Democratic Party, and most importantly, a Black mother and grandmother, I refuse to sit quietly while Trump puts the lives of Black mothers at risk.
Democrats must — and will — fight back. That’s why we’re working with state parties and sister committees to hold town halls, lift up voices on the ground, run candidates in key local races, and build infrastructure that keeps Black maternal health and equitable health care access at the center of the national conversation. The Democratic Party is the party of working-class people, and to reclaim that mantle, we need to fight relentlessly for the health and safety of Black women. Together, we can push back on Donald Trump and demonstrate to these Republican clowns in Congress that the people do, in fact, have more power than Trump and his gang of billionaire freeloaders.