Special Supplemental Nutrition Program for Women, Infants, and Children (WIC) Funding Cuts

The idea that low-income women should be prevented from having children was first explicitly proposed to me last summer. The owner of the idea suggested fining violators—but why stop there? Wouldn’t prison and forced sterilization be options, too?

            Shock prevented me from pointing out the obvious: If low-income women were barred from having children, you wouldn’t be having this conversation with me.

My father was born to my fantastic grandmother in the mid-1950s. In addition to being a wonderful person and strong mother, my grandmother also happened to be a young, low-income woman living in the projects on the outskirts of Boston. In part due to government assistance, my father and his siblings were given the chance to grow into healthy and successful people despite a multitude of compounding factors related to poverty and social struggles. My father excelled in school, and now has a successful and meaningful career as an author and professor.

My goal is to make a difference in medicine and global health through research, policy reform, and social entrepreneurship. I hope that my path allows me to serve as an advocate for my relatives who have helped shape my hopeful perception of the world — because more people than ever face the same adversity today.

Is there social capital in providing safe and sanitary housing, nutritious food, and first-rate educations? Yes, and it exponentially pays forward for generations. My brother was just accepted to every college he applied to, and my cousin served as the Western states campaign manager for President Obama’s 2008 run for office and is now the director of field operations for a major company. We, along with thousands of others with stories similar to ours, wouldn’t be here if our grandmothers been told that they weren’t worthy of raising children, or if their children had been considered undeserving of basic human rights.

The history of poverty and oppression in the United States is central to the claim that monetary wealth determines an individual’s parenting aptitude, and it must be loudly acknowledged that dictating parenthood by income level is discriminatory. The notion that low-income women should not be permitted to have children is classist, often racist, and reminiscent of the recent era when eugenicists reigned as the kings of science and policy.

On March 16th, President Trump unveiled his proposed budget for 2018. Among the most sinister of the proposed cuts were those reducing funding for nutrition and family planning services. It is both unrealistic and inhumane to expect women not to have children due to their financial circumstances. Pregnancy and parenting are primal human experiences, and a right that all should have without question. Treating a class of women as unworthy of children deprives them of a basic human need and purpose, and deprives the world of infants who have the potential to grow into wonderful people. Conversely, it is authoritative and unacceptable to corner a woman into having a child she either feels she cannot raise or does not want. The proposed budget changes infringe upon the rights of all women, but especially low-income women who have very few other options. These cuts are a direct attack on those living in poverty, and do nothing but set the stage for the downward spiral of marginalized communities at the hands of a government proffering systemic oppression as it withholds basic human rights.

Ironically, the idea that low-income women are not deserving of motherhood and that babies born into poverty are not deserving of healthy development and humane treatment was first shared with me just minutes after starting my walk home from my internship under a physician studying long-term neonatal neurodevelopment. Nutrition, stimulation, emotional support, and attention are essential to the healthy development of young brains, and the role of nutrition in neurocognitive development is corroborated by several studies. Researchers suggest focusing on overall diet quality to provide children with solid foundation for brain development. Historically, the United States government has aimed to ease a small portion of the pressure on low-income parents by providing food packages, lactation support, and several other services through the Supplemental Nutrition Program for Women, Infants, and Children (WIC). Through WIC, families with children ages 5 and under are able to buy food products with high nutritional value— such as vegetables, fruit, milk, tofu, cheese, peanut butter, yogurt, and eggs— that may have been previously unavailable to them due to financial circumstances. The intent of the program is to lower infant and maternal mortality and to provide families with more capacity to focus on the other areas critical to development noted above. While I am nowhere near motherhood, it easy to imagine how it is both an exciting and challenging transition, and how any previous difficulties can be intensified as a result of new emotional and financial stressors. If parents are less worried about earning enough to provide the next meal, they will be a capable of creating a lower-stress home for their child. In an article published by The Atlantic last week, experts discuss how high stress as a result of poverty can reduce problem solving skills and the ability to set goals and complete tasks efficiently. WIC helps mitigate these effects by working to combat common sources of stress for low-income families. While WIC alone cannot come close to solving all poverty-related challenges affecting young families, it is an integral part of supporting a positive environment change for one out of two babies born in the United States.

The Trump administration has proposed a $200 million cut, which is not likely significant enough to threaten WIC’s current caseload. However, WIC is currently unable to support eligible families in the United States, and in 2013 was only able to provide for 83% of children and families in need. Any budget cuts will further hinder the abilities of the program, essentially robbing mothers and children in the name of unnecessarily increased defense spending. While it should go without saying, if we aren’t caring for our children and nurturing strong families, we have nothing left to protect.

Here in New Hampshire, a bill currently making its way through the legislature—

SB7—would raise the eligibility threshold for the Supplementary Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP), formerly known as Food Stamps, ending the benefit for 17,000 NH families—the vast majority of whom are working poor people. The White House Council of Economic Advisors published a report in 2015 citing research findings indicating that children who benefit from SNAP “…see improvements in health and academic performance and that these benefits are mirrored by long-run improvements in health, educational attainment, and economic self-sufficiency.”

Along with significant cuts to nutritional support for mothers and children, the Trump administration has proposed reducing funding for reproductive health services and taken legislative action to inhibit the abilities of healthcare providers to offer treatments and services that enable women to make informed choices regarding their lives. Opposed by only two Republicans, this new law is a reversal of President Obama’s January 18^th rule and will prohibit Title X funding allocation for clinics offering abortions. This decision will not only limit access to contraceptives for low-income residents of conservative states, but will also impede on the affected clinics’ ability to provide other life-saving services, such as cancer screenings and well-woman exams.

 Trump’s policies undermine the individual woman, her family, and society. The proposed system is unethical on many levels — it is unacceptable to police a woman’s human right to have children on the basis of her financial means, and it is unacceptable to force a woman to carry and raise a child that she doesn’t want by limiting her access to reproductive health rights. This is irresponsible and short-sighted, and leaves poverty-affected women in an overwhelming position of amplified insecurity and reduced autonomy. Most importantly, it is cruel to withhold vital nutrition from children in all situations.

Politics aside, children should be our top priority. Their safety, growth, and happiness is paramount. The Trump administration’s proposed budget and legislative action limit reproductive choices and simultaneously lack empathy and rationality, suggesting that classism and racism are at the heart of it. The long-term individual and social benefits of WIC, SNAP, and pre- and post-natal care are all well documented. Only Trump’s alternative facts say otherwise.