For Immediate Release:	May 8, 2009
For More Information:	Adrienne Ammerman, National Women's Law Center, 202-588-5180
Sponsor Organization:	The National Women's Law Center
NWLC Dismayed That Restrictions Remain on Reproductive Health Support
(Washington, D.C.) President Obama’s detailed budget for Fiscal Year 2010 makes investments critical to the well-being of women and their families, especially in the areas of health care and education, the National Women’s Law Center (NWLC) said today. Yet the fine print retains disturbing restrictions on reproductive health. “After years of budgets that proposed cutting vital services while expanding tax breaks for the wealthiest, this budget changes direction,” stated Nancy Duff Campbell, Co-President of NWLC. “It makes a major down payment on health care reform, invests in education from the first years of life, makes college more affordable, increases funding for civil rights enforcement, and restores some balance to the tax code. However, given the enormous challenges that families and communities are facing, this budget could and should do even more to address rising needs.” The budget eliminates misleading and wasteful abstinence-only programs, redirecting this funding to support more effective approaches to prevent teen pregnancy. It also allows states to provide more support for contraception through the Medicaid program. However, the budget retains unfortunate restrictions on the use of public funds to pay for abortion services, including Medicaid, federal employee health plans, the Peace Corps, and others. “It is important that this budget contains new support for reducing unintended pregnancy through investments in contraception and effective sex-education programs,” said Marcia Greenberger, Co-President of NWLC. “Unfortunately, by failing to provide women with the ability to obtain safe abortion services, the budget fails to support the full range of reproductive health care women need.” Some highlights of how the budget affects women and families include: Health Care: The President’s budget makes substantial new investments toward fixing our broken health care system. It creates a reserve fund of more than $600 billion, which will serve as a “down payment” on health reform that will assure affordable and high-quality health coverage for all Americans, while slowing the growth of health care costs. A portion of the reserve fund will be financed through changes that will make the Medicare and Medicaid programs more efficient, without harming the benefits that these programs provide – benefits that are critical to millions of women. However, rather than reversing years of inadequate funding for programs that provide essential health services for women, the budget includes only level or insufficient funding increases for several programs that provide essential services for women. Reproductive Health: The President’s budget takes some important steps on key reproductive health issues. It eliminates the Community Based Abstinence Education and Title V Abstinence Education programs, and invests $173 million in new evidence-based teen pregnancy prevention programs. The budget also includes a provision that gives states the option to expand family planning services to women who have family incomes at or below 200 percent of the Federal poverty level – an important step that will help to reduce unintended pregnancies and provide critical health care to low-income women. Unfortunately, it fails to provide adequate investments in the Title X family planning program, which provides contraceptive care and other preventive health services to millions of women each year. This marks a missed opportunity to provide the funding necessary to meet the growing need for these services. It also retains unjust restrictions on the use of public funds to pay for abortion services, including in the Medicaid program, federal employee health plans, the Peace Corps, and others. These restrictions disproportionately impact low-income women who depend on the federal government for their health care. Child Care and Early Education: The President’s budget funds several new early childhood initiatives, including Title I Early Childhood Grants, competitive Early Learning Challenge grants, Home Visitation programs for low-income parents and newborns, and a Promise Neighorhoods initiative. However, the budget provides only a modest increase in FY 2010 funding for Head Start, and no new funding for the Child Care and Development Block Grant (CCDBG) or the 21st Century Community Learning Centers after-school program. Additional funds for Head Start and CCDBG are available this year and next from the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act. However, a substantial portion of this funding will be used to compensate for state budget shortfalls and to address families’ expanding needs for support during the economic downturn. Additional funding for core child care and early learning programs is essential to address gaps in these programs after years of frozen funding and to achieve a comprehensive, coordinated system of high-quality, affordable early care and education. Child Nutrition: The President’s budget provides a significant funding increase for the Special Supplemental Nutrition Program for Women, Infants and Children (WIC). However, several child nutrition programs will be reauthorized by Congress this year, including the Child and Adult Care Food Program, and the budget does not ensure that children have access to nutritious meals in and out of school by providing an increase of only $1 billion. Education: The President's budget builds on his commitment to reducing the high school dropout rate by providing $50 million for a new High School Graduation Initiative. The budget also proposes large increases in available Pell grant funding, increasing the maximum awarded per student to $5,550, and indexing the annual maximum to outpace inflation. Funding for the Women’s Educational Equity Act, which supports gender equity in education, remains low but represents a significant improvement over the Bush Administration’s FY09 proposal to cut funding for the program entirely. Employment and Training: The President’s budget allocates $50 million for a new green jobs training initiative, which will support job training projects to prepare workers for careers in renewable energy and energy efficiency. The budget also proposes $15 million in funding for a new workforce data quality initiative and increases funding for job training at community colleges. However, the proposed budget fails to increase funding to provide women apprenticeships in nontraditional occupations. It is particularly important that enforcement agencies take the steps necessary to ensure equal access for women to jobs in new sectors of the economy. Civil Rights and Enforcement: The Administration prioritizes civil rights enforcement by including $145 million for the Civil Rights Division of the Department of Justice – a much-needed increase of $22 million. In addition, the new budget proposes a 33 percent increase from last year’s funding for the Department of Labor’s Office of Federal Contract Compliance Programs (OFCCP), which enforces nondiscrimination and affirmative action requirements for federal contractors. The new budget also gives a critical $25 million increase to support the enforcement activities of the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission and increases funding for the Department of Education to enforce civil rights laws, including Title IX. Housing Assistance: At a time when many families, especially those headed by women, are at increased risk of homelessness, the budget significantly increases funding for rental housing assistance for low-income people, including Housing Choice vouchers, Section 8 project-based rental assistance, and public housing. Tax Reform: The President’s budget would significantly expand tax assistance for low- and middle-income families by making permanent improvements in tax credits included in the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act. The budget also extends the provisions of the 2001 and 2003 tax cuts that benefit households with incomes below $250,000. The President’s budget promotes tax fairness and raises revenues needed to support essential investments, including by closing tax loopholes that allow corporations and wealthy individuals to evade and avoid taxes, eliminating tax preferences for oil and gas companies, retaining the estate tax at the 2009 level, and allowing the 2001 and 2003 tax cuts for very high-income households to expire. ### The National Women's Law Center is a non-profit organization that has been working since 1972 to advance and protect women's legal rights. The Center focuses on major policy areas of importance to women and their families including economic security, education, employment and health, with special attention given to the concerns of low-income women. For more information on the Center, visit: http://www.nwlc.org.