GOP in Congress attack $1.8m in Women & Infants funding
PROVIDENCE — Congressional Republicans are criticizing the $1.8 million that Rhode Island’s Democratic senators secured for the midwifery unit at Women & Infants Hospital because the Providence facility provides abortion services in other parts of the hospital.
The House approved a $1.2 trillion package of spending bills on Friday just a few hours before funding for some key federal agencies was set to expire, but some Republicans blasted the earmarks, or “pork,” included in the spending plan.
For example, Representative Robert B. Aderholt, an Alabama Republican, objected to 12 earmarks from Democratic senators, including the $1.8 million that Rhode Island Senators Jack Reed and Sheldon Whitehouse secured for the Women & Infants Hospital project. The hospital’s family-planning clinic provides abortion and related services, to which Aderholt objects.
And on Thursday, Senator Mike Lee, a Utah Republican, criticized Democratic earmarks, saying, “We’re spending millions of taxpayer dollars on radical pet projects that only serve to weaken and divide our country, culturally and economically.”
As an example, Lee said cited “$1.8 million for a hospital in Rhode Island that performs abortions, including late-term abortions.”
Reed’s office defended the funding on Friday, noting that those abortion services are legal and that those services have nothing to do with the project, which aims to help women safely give birth.
“Women & Infants offers high-quality health care to everyone who walks through their doors,” Reed said. “It’s a gem of a hospital and a state and national leader when it comes to maternity care. You’d have to be either really cynical or deeply misinformed to attack this type of federal investment to help birthing mothers, improve health outcomes for newborns, and save taxpayers money.”
Four out five families from Rhode Island give birth at Women & Infants Hospital, which is the largest obstetrical facility in the state, the second-largest in New England, and the 11th largest stand-alone obstetrical service in the country.
Reed, a member of the Appropriations Subcommittee on Labor, Health and Human Services, and Education, said, “I will continue standing up for women’s rights to access health care and choose how they want to give birth. Birthing and reproductive plans should be decided by expectant moms and their partners, not MAGA Republicans.”
Whitehouse said, “Just about every person in Rhode Island has experience at Women and Infants, whether they were born at the hospital, or they know someone whose life was saved or whose infant was painstakingly cared for in the NICU.”
Republicans have proposed amendments to get rid of the $1.8 million and other Democratic earmarks.
“This last-minute amendment is another egregious and all-too-common example of Republicans reaching outside of their states to meddle with the health and the choices of women in other parts of the country,” Whitehouse said. “We will not allow it in Rhode Island, and we must not allow this amendment to pass.”
In 2019, the Rhode Island General Assembly passed the Reproductive Privacy Act, which protected abortion rights in Rhode Island in case the US Supreme Court overturned Roe v. Wade — as it did in 2022. And in 2023, the Assembly passed the Equality in Abortion Coverage Act, allowing state employees and Medicaid recipients to receive health insurance coverage for all abortions.
But according to Reed’s office, the $1.8 million would not be spent on abortion services and would go into a nationally accredited, in-hospital Alongside Midwifery Unit beside Women & Infants’ new labor and delivery center.
Many leading maternity hospitals utilize these types of units, which are designed to provide specialized birthing care to women, infants, and families in a more relaxed environment, according to Reed’s office. They offer expectant mothers a birthing option closer to a home birth experience, but with the added safety, workforce, and resources of a world-class hospital on site.
The unit would give healthy women the option to give birth in a dedicated space with a homier-like atmosphere under the supervision of experienced midwives, who are highly skilled health practitioners who have undertaken specialized training, according to Reed’s office. Midwives can provide pregnant people with comprehensive care across the duration of their pregnancy, labor and birth, and throughout the postnatal period.
The appropriations package includes $31.1 million in federal earmarks for a variety of Rhode Island projects secured by Reed, a senior member of the Appropriations Committee and chairman of the Legislative Branch subcommittee.
That is in addition to the $122.7 million in Reed-backed earmarks included in the appropriations package that was signed into law earlier this month.
Besides the Women & Infants project, the earmarks secured by Reed include:
• $2.17 million for Rhode Island Student Assistance Services to provide substance-use prevention and mental health services
• $1.5 million for the expansion of Bryant University’s School of Health and Behavioral Sciences
• $1.45 million for Hope & Main’s Food Business Incubator
• $1.32 million to upgrade The Providence Center’s telehealth services
• $1.27 million for technology upgrades for Rhode Island College’s Professional Studies and Continuing Education program.
• $1.2 million for biomedical workforce development training at the University of Rhode Island
• $650,000 for the Rhode Island Black Business Association to provide small business technical assistance
• $639,000 for flood mitigation in North Providence.
‘You’d have to be either really cynical or deeply misinformed to attack this type of federal investment to help birthing mothers, improve health outcomes for newborns, and save taxpayers money.’
SENATOR JACK REED, Democrat from Rhode Island