The Politics of Women's Health

The 'Big Beautiful Bill' - Now the Law, Will Hurt Women and Babies

Photo by Patricia Prudente on Unsplash

With all the talk about God and family and with the push for women to have more children, there is a missing discussion point: there are fewer and fewer safe places to have babies. Hospitals are abandoning maternity wards and it is only going to get worse.

Every few weeks in America, another maternity ward permanently shuts its doors. This is not a gradual decline—this is a healthcare emergency that has already eliminated obstetrics departments from 300 hospitals since 2018, making maternity care the single most eliminated medical specialty in the United States. Now, with $1 trillion in federal Medicaid cuts targeting the exact funding stream that supports 41% of all American births, this crisis is about to explode into a catastrophe that will leave millions of women without access to safe childbirth services.

The statistics are staggering and accelerating. Chartis data reveals that 217 hospital obstetric units closed between 2011 and early 2023—an …