So much for being the “fertilization president.”
It was an already dubious moniker, which President Donald Trump conferred upon himself during a stream-of-consciousness address at a 2025 Women’s History Month event. He also referred to himself as “the father of IVF” on the campaign trail last fall, while promising to protect women and families. But those intentions appear to have been negated by a round of lay-offs handed down by his administration, which saw the Division of Reproductive Health at the CDC gutted.
According to experts, the loss of these staffers and their work will hurt women – and children – by “disrupting prenatal care, contraception access and efforts to reduce maternal and infant mortality,” Elizabeth Kielb, director of maternal and infant health at March of Dimes, wrote on LinkedIn. “Additionally, state and local health departments will now face added burdens without the federal backing they’ve relied on for decades.”
She added: “The ability to monitor, research and improve reproductive health outcomes is at risk” – and maternal health efforts have already suffered throughout the nation, with the aforementioned maternal mortality rates continuing to rise as doctors in the field struggling to do their jobs – a direct result of the 2022 loss of federal abortion protections.
Over 100 employees lost their jobs in this round of federal-government terminations, all implemented by the so-called Department of Government Efficiency – a department which, it’s worth noting, nixed so many positions last month alone that layoffs throughout the U.S. hit numbers not seen since the start of the Covid pandemic.
Those cuts, too, are predicted to have negative ripple effects, especially on our struggling economy. In regards to what happens next without the Division of Reproductive Health, though, those who were let go expressed concern about not just the life-saving work itself, but the vital research they were conducting as well, which now appears to be on hold indefinitely.
One laid-off worker, who spoke anonymously to MSNBC, rhetorically asked while invoking his own moniker: “President Trump said he was the fertility president. How does cutting this program support that?”
