Who would want to have babies under a Trump administration? Not me.

Yahoo

06-06-2025

Despite declarations that something needs to be done about the declining birth rate in the United States, neither President Donald Trump nor the Republican Party has the desire to protect pregnant people. If they did, the Trump administration wouldn't have made its latest move to restrict abortion nationwide.
On Tuesday, June 3, the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services rescinded a Biden-era policy that directed hospitals to provide emergency abortions if it was needed to stabilize a pregnant patient. The guidance and communications on it apparently 'do not reflect the policy of this Administration.'
I, like many people who support abortion rights, know what this will lead to. It means more pregnant people will die.
Does that reflect the policy of the administration?
The Biden policy was implemented in 2022, following the fall of Roe v. Wade, and argued that hospitals receiving Medicare funding had to comply with the Emergency Medical Treatment and Active Labor Act (EMTALA).
The former administration argued that this included providing emergency abortions when they were needed to stabilize a patient, even in states that had severe abortion restrictions.
Opinion: A brain dead pregnant Georgia woman is a horror story. It's Republicans' fault.
This wasn't entirely a surprise. In 2024, the Supreme Court ruled that Texas could ban virtually all abortions in the state, including abortions that would have occurred under the old EMTALA guidelines.
Still, it's terrifying to see this crucial policy eliminated.
It's already dangerous to be pregnant in the United States. Our maternal mortality rate is much higher than in other wealthy countries. Same with our infant mortality rate. This will only exacerbate these tragedies.
In states with abortion bans, the risks are even greater. A study from the Gender Equity Policy Institute found that people living in states with abortion bans were twice as likely to die during or shortly after childbirth. This is also backed by anecdotal evidence, including the 2022 deaths of two women in Georgia after the state passed a six-week ban.
A different study found that infant mortality rates increased in states with severe restrictions on abortion, including an increase in deaths due to congenital anomalies.
The Trump administration does not care about what is medically necessary to save someone's life. They don't care about whether the children supposedly saved by rescinding this policy will grow up without their mother. They care about their perceived moral superiority. They care about controlling women.
Why would anybody want to have a child under that Republican way of thinking?
Opinion: We're worrying about the wrong thing. Low birth rate isn't the crisis: Child care is.
I want to say I'm surprised that the Trump administration would allow women in need of emergency care to die.
Yet this is clearly aligned with the Republican stance on abortion, just like it's aligned with the actions that the party has taken to make it harder for women to access necessary care.
Opinion alerts: Get columns from your favorite columnists + expert analysis on top issues, delivered straight to your device through the USA TODAY app. Don't have the app? Download it for free from your app store.
Whether you like it or not, abortion is a necessary part of health care. It saves lives. Alexis McGill Johnson, the president and CEO of Planned Parenthood, laid it out plainly.
'Women have died because they couldn't get the lifesaving abortion care they needed,' she said in a statement. 'The Trump administration is willing to let pregnant people die, and that is exactly what we can expect."
Again, this is the administration that wants young women like me to have children and improve the country's birth rate. This is an administration that claims to care about women and children. I know I wouldn't want to have a child while Trump continues to make it unsafe to be pregnant and give birth.
I hate that this is the reality.
Follow USA TODAY columnist Sara Pequeño on X, formerly Twitter, @sara__pequeno
You can read diverse opinions from our USA TODAY columnists and other writers on the Opinion front page, on X, formerly Twitter, @usatodayopinion and in our Opinion newsletter.
This article originally appeared on USA TODAY: Trump just made healthcare more dangerous for pregnant women | Opinion