What Congress Must Get Done in 2025 to Prioritize Reproductive Well-Being

As we find our footing in the new year, we’re navigating more than just freezing temperatures or the familiar shame of abandoning our optimistic resolutions of run clubs or meatless Mondays. We’re facing a new presidential administration and a new Congress that are invoking disappointing deja vu with their attacks on bodily autonomy and reproductive well-being right from the start. But we cannot let the intentionally overwhelming legislative and administrative tactics unbalance us – now, more than ever, it is crucial for us to remember (and for others to be reminded) that members of Congress work for the public, not the other way around. Their job is to act in our best interest, and our reproductive health is at the core of our overall well-being. Here are four things that your members of Congress must do to act in accordance with the urgency of our current situation:

Fund the Government

Congress has until March 14 to pass spending bills that fund the government for the rest of fiscal year (FY) 2025, which will end on September 30, 2025. The ongoing lack of final appropriations is detrimental to the funding of various sexual and reproductive health programs.

For example, the Title X family planning program and the Teen Pregnancy Prevention Program (TPP), which provides evidence-based sexual health information, are just two of the crucial federally funded programs where funding uncertainty has a direct and dangerous impact on the reproductive well-being of the communities they support. Any decrease or delay in funding will make it exponentially harder for people in these communities, many of whom are working-class or low-income, to access the standard of health care that they deserve. 

In fact, without an increase in funding, these programs will not meet the needs of their communities, and millions of people will lack the comprehensive reproductive care that they are entitled to. 

Pass Proactive Policies for Abortion Access

Now that it has been nearly three years since the Dobbs decision, the future that many of us feared has been cemented as reality. Currently, there are bans and restrictions on abortion in approximately half of the states. As of February 2025, only nine states and the District of Columbia have no bans or restrictions on the basis of gestational age. 

The outcome of the Dobbs decision has highlighted the uncertain road ahead, but also the complex history of the path we took to get here. Roe did not secure abortion access for all. There have been restrictive state laws for over a half century that have made access to abortion functionally impossible for millions of people.

Access to abortion is a fundamental human right, and the loss of it should be treated as such. Our representatives in Congress have an obligation to recognize that there is no such thing as a tolerable assault on our autonomy, and that the loss of one freedom will inevitably lead to the loss of more. They must do everything in their power to pass proactive policies that secure, and in the best cases, expand abortion access across this country. 

Protect Contraceptive Access

Currently, there are approximately 19 million women of reproductive age that are in need of publicly-funded contraception and live in contraceptive deserts. These “contraceptive deserts” occur all over the country, with 1.2 million of these women residing in areas that have no health centers offering the full range of birth control methods. Congress should address access gaps with urgency. In addition to fully funding Title X, they should oppose cuts to Medicaid. Together these programs fund the overwhelming majority of publicly-funded contraception. 

In addition, it’s clear there is a growing threat to undermine contraception access. This makes it clear that we must have our right to access the methods that allow us to control our reproductive futures set into law, through legislation such as the Right to Contraception Act. 

Support for contraception is overwhelmingly popular, and our representatives should act in accordance with the values of their constituent base when it comes time to support critical legislation that could secure a more equitable future for us all.

Pass proactive Maternal Health Policies            

The US has the worst maternal health mortality rates out of all the high income countries in the world. Black women in particular are three times more likely to die than white women during pregnancy or childbirth. These statistics have been around for long enough that the lack of tangible response to the maternal mortality rates is noticeably deliberate. Congress must act to address the fact that the country whose “leadership” they wish to have acknowledged at an international scale is leading primarily in the horrendous conditions that vulnerable mothers face. 

Encouraging states to extend and expand Medicaid postpartum coverage is the bare minimum that Congress can do to protect mothers and hopefully begin the process of reckoning with the intersections of race and class in health care disparities across this country. Our representatives should also put their full weight behind policies such as the Momnibus Act, which seeks to address the fact that over 80% of the US’s maternal deaths are preventable. 

For more information on potential federal actions, visit our federal policy action center.