Letter: HHS Should Defund Top OB-GYN Org For Using Tax Dollars To Advance Radical Agenda
The nation’s largest obstetrician and gynecologist organization receives millions of American tax dollars to aid various government public health initiatives. A new letter to the Department of Health and Human Services, however, suggests that the American College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists (ACOG) does not deserve continued federal funding after it repeatedly used taxpayer money to promote radical gender ideology, abortion until birth, and racist guidelines for doctors.
ACOG has a long history of hostility towards pro-life doctors and pro-life laws. The organization proudly classifies abortion as “essential health care,” denies the science on unborn babies’ hearts, discourages its tens of thousands of members from using more than a dozen scientifically accurate terms to describe life in the womb, and falsely claims babies in the womb do not feel pain until at least 24 weeks.
In an April 10 request to Secretary of Health Robert F. Kennedy Jr. and his leadership team, Alliance Defending Freedom’s Director of Regulatory Practice Matthew Bowman asked HHS to end the steady stream of funding the Obama and Biden administrations established for ACOG, which he claimed has become a “radicalized opponent of health and of your agenda.”
“For far too long, previous administrations have weaponized HHS for political purposes. They advanced dangerous gender ideology, racial discrimination in the form of DEI, and mandates that promote abortions and violate conscience. Key to this radical agenda has been HHS funding to ACOG,” the letter continues.
Bowman also suggested HHS investigate the organization over concerns that it “improperly used HHS cooperative agreements to promote DEI in violation of applicable law.”
“HHS should further consider instituting procedures to suspend and debar ACOG and the ACOG Foundation and require them to disgorge HHS funds. This would be consistent with other investigations OCR has recently undertaken,” he noted.
Under one taxpayer-funded grant, ACOG received upwards of $15 million to advance the goals of the Health Resources and Services Administration’s Alliance for Innovation on Maternal and Child Health. Instead, ACOG used its “100% funded by HRSA” saferbirth.org website and podcast to promote critical race theory, abortion, and transgenderism.
The letter also outlines how ACOG received millions of taxpayer dollars “to periodically update the women’s preventive services insurance coverage requirement under the Affordable Care Act” but used those funds instead to push for no religious or moral exemptions for contraception coverage requirements.
“During this time, ACOG has radically expanded the mandate beyond HHS’s legal authority, has generated unnecessary and harmful lawsuits, and has attacked the Trump administration merely for respecting conscience — all the while raking in over $7 million in taxpayer funds,” the letter continues, noting that “HRSA had essentially used this cooperative agreement to farm out its legal responsibilities to ACOG.”
It was through these “multiyear funding agreements,” the letter states, that Democrats orchestrated a way to make American taxpayers “pay ACOG to attack President Trump’s agenda at HHS.”
“Both instruments are paying ACOG to spend taxpayer dollars inconsistent with this administration’s policies on the biological basis for sex, ending racial discrimination and ‘equity’ programs, and preventing taxpayer funding for the promotion of abortion,” the letter said.
The letter also notes that “while continuing to collect millions of dollars from HHS, ACOG is directly attacking Secretary Kennedy’s agenda, calling it an ‘attack on public health.’”
“ACOG cannot carry out cooperative agreements — under which it is supposed to be implementing HHS’s agenda — when it denounces HHS’s agenda in the strongest terms. To save taxpayers millions of dollars and redirect HHS’s efforts to making America healthy again, we strongly urge you to end HHS’s funding arrangements with ACOG and its related entities,” the letter concludes.
Jordan Boyd is a staff writer at The Federalist and producer of The Federalist Radio Hour. Her work has also been featured in The Daily Wire, Fox News, and RealClearPolitics. Jordan graduated from Baylor University where she majored in political science and minored in journalism. Follow her on X @jordanboydtx.
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