US President Joe Biden signed a historic executive order on Monday promoting women's health research as the country celebrates Women's History Month.
The executive actions follow First Lady Jill Biden's announcement last month of $100 million in funding for women's health.
Biden To Boost Women's Health Research
The president issued the order during a Monday morning Women's History Month event. First Lady Biden, Vice President Kamala Harris, and former California First Lady Maria Shriver joined him.
According to the White House, the order allocates $12 billion and represents the "most comprehensive set" of executive action to advance women's health research.
However, this funding is not guaranteed. Congress can take action to deny the president funding since it has the "power of the purse."
Shriver, a journalist, author, and advocate for Alzheimer's research, said that now that the president has done his job, they must do theirs. She added that Congress must approve the $12 billion investment this president has called for to implement this bold vision.
If approved by Congress, the order will support menopausal research and allow the National Institutes of Health (NIH) to launch its first-ever "Pathways to Prevention" series on the topic.
Shriver called the president's order historic, especially in light of the emphasis on menopause.
Furthermore, she noted that this is the first the president of the US has ever signed an executive order that mentions the words' menopause' and 'women's mid-life health.
Further study on reproductive aging is especially crucial for racial health equality, given that women of color in the US experience inequities in access to reproductive health care compared to white women. These disparities are caused by both systemic racism in the healthcare system and individual racial bias.
Compared to white women, black women are more likely to experience more negative bodily symptoms as they approach middle age. Shriver said that Black and Brown women are more likely to develop endometriosis and face pregnancy-related complications.
Beyond reproductive health, Biden's order includes research on environmental health concerns, mental health and substance use disorders, and autoimmune diseases that disproportionately affect women, like rheumatoid arthritis.
Biden Stands Up for Women
Biden stressed that research "has taken too long" to address women's health care and said his executive order mandates the most comprehensive executive actions ever taken to improve maternal and child health.
The president warned that his opponents were underestimating the "power of women" at the ballot box and criticized Republicans who opposed the COVID-era economic stimulus bill known as the American Rescue Plan, which he signed into law.
He claimed that the bill's increase in the child tax credit "cut child poverty nearly in half."
"Clearly those bragging about overturning Roe v. Wade to support national abortion ban have no clue about the power of women," he said, referring to conservatives who support the Supreme Court's 2022 decision to overturn the landmark ruling.
He added, referring to women voters, that they would speak out again in 2024 and send him a Democratic Congress that supports reproductive freedom. "I promise you, I promise you we will restore Roe v. Wade again as the law of the land," he noted.
