When Suzanne Bell saw President Donald Trump’s announcement this month about improving the future of women’s health research, she felt deep skepticism. Bell, a demographer at Johns Hopkins University, is part of a class-action lawsuit filed in September by a group of researchers accusing the National Institutes of Health (NIH) and other federal government entities of unconstitutionally censoring their research. According to the lawsuit, the department used a list of 235 keywords to identify research that might elevate issues not approved by the Trump administration.
The forbidden terms included “gender,” “advancing diversity” and “pregnant individual.” Bell joined the lawsuit amid challenges to her research grants, including one on the impact of abortion bans on women’s health. An attorney representing the government in court filings did not immediately respond to a request for comment. This is the legal landscape of federal health research as the president, alongside the first lady, signed an executive order last week that calls for creating a women’s health division within NIH and a new White House-backed women’s health task force.
The executive order gives federal stakeholders 90 days to establish the division within one of the existing 27 NIH institutes or centers. There is already an NIH Office of Research on Women’s Health, created in the early 1990s, that primarily coordinates priorities among the institutes and centers. An NIH division could provide the infrastructure for more specific research into women’s health, but no goals or dollar figures are attached to the project for now.
Some national policy experts are incredulous about the new initiative after watching the same White House propose cuts to NIH’s nearly $48 billion budget and challenge grant topics — including in areas that impact women’s health. The Center for American Progress (CAP), a liberal think tank, estimates that through May 2025, the Department of Government Efficiency program once led by Elon Musk cut at least $3 billion in grants for research, education and other programs that help women and girls. The administration has also sought to have more political oversight over who is approved for research funding.
Others are pointing to the timing of the order, just weeks before the midterm elections in which Republicans are likely to lose at least one chamber of Congress. Affordability has been top of mind for potential voters ahead of November 3, particularly the rising cost of healthcare. People are facing a jump in employer-sponsored health insurance costs and further erosion to insurance offered through the Affordable Care Act, following inaction from the Republican-controlled Congress.
Many states are also preparing to enact new Medicaid work requirements as part of $1 trillion in cuts to the federal-state health insurance program. Jones, a senior policy analyst at CAP. Jackson Women’s Health Organization, the 2022 Supreme Court ruling that overturned Roe v.
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