Continuing the series of updates on things the Trump administration has been doing to attack our health and wellness, today I bring you:
2. Attacking women’s reproductive health
On September 11, a Trump administration spokesperson for what’s left of USAID said that $10 million worth of birth control pills, IUDs, and hormonal implants to prevent pregnancy—already purchased with U.S. taxpayer dollars—had been removed from the Belgian warehouse where they had been languishing since the dismantling of USAID, and destroyed. These are perfectly good contraceptives destined for low-income countries. If Republicans are supposedly anti-abortion, wouldn’t it make sense to allow the already purchased contraceptives make their way to the countries for which they were destined? This would prevent unwanted pregnancy, and thus prevent abortions? The Gates Foundation, the Children’s Investment Fund Foundation, and others had offered to buy or accept a donation of the contraceptives at no cost to the US government, but supposedly in June the administration had decided to spend another $167,000 to destroy them instead. Yet after this story broke in the NY Times, Belgian officials raced to the warehouse to see for themselves, and said that no, this spokesperson didn’t know what she was talking about (What?! I can’t believe it!), and the contraceptives were still sitting there unharmed. Good thing, because it’s against the law in Flanders (the part of Belgium where the contraceptives are housed) to destroy perfectly good medicines and medical devices—as it should be everywhere, when so many people in the world are in need. The current status one month later is unclear, and frankly we should all be disgusted by this immoral, wasteful action. Speaking of things we should be disgusted by, in case you were under the illusion that you have freedom or privacy in the US—especially when doing perfectly legal things—you should be aware that this June 25 Republican members of Congress sent a letter to the EPA administrator asking whether they had existing EPA-approved methods for detecting mifepristone (an abortion medication) in wastewater, and “If not, what resources are needed to develop these testing methods?” Apparently the EPA responded that while there were not any EPA-approved methods for this currently, new methods could be developed. You may be familiar with the ways that wastewater detection methods have been used during the COVID pandemic to identify areas where there is an uptick of new infections (since the virus sheds into people’s waste). This can’t pinpoint a specific person, but is useful from a public health surveillance perspective to educate the public or focus limited resources. However, some people have raised concerns about ethical considerations here, especially the weaponization of these methods to stigmatize certain groups of people or criminalize certain behavior. Perhaps you share my perspective that given our political climate here in 2025, it’s not a stretch to believe that this is exactly why Republicans are looking for the EPA to begin doing this for mifepristone.