Melinda French Gates: How Joe Biden earned my first presidential endorsement

Editor’s note: Melinda French Gates is a philanthropist, business leader, and global advocate for women and girls.

CNN
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As President Joe Biden challenges former President Donald Trump once again to a battle for the White House, the stakes for women and families have never been higher.

I have never endorsed a presidential candidate, and because my work on gender equality and global health often requires me to collaborate with leaders of both parties, I have avoided speaking publicly about who I voted for in past elections.

But this year is different.

Because President Trump’s first term has endangered women’s health, undermined their safety, and taken away basic freedoms, I support Biden in this election and urge others to do the same.

One of Trump’s first acts as president was to reinstate and expand the Global Gag Rule, which restricts foreign aid to organizations that provide reproductive services and, by some estimates, has led to more than 100,000 maternal and child deaths worldwide.

The former president imposed restrictions on the federal family planning program, Title X, making it harder for low-income people to obtain contraception. Throughout his campaign and administration, he used often divisive and sometimes violent rhetoric, from sexist attacks on female journalists to calling for the jailing of his opponents, which fostered a hostile political environment for women in public office and contributed to widespread intimidation of campaign staff, many of whom are women.

And he knowingly appointed Supreme Court justices who would overturn Roe v. Wade, resulting in decisions that would have far-reaching and devastating consequences for women and families.

In the two years since Roe was overturned, emergency rooms have refused to admit pregnant women needing emergency treatment because doctors fear legal liability, and obstetricians have fled states with strict bans that could deny women basic services like contraception.

The United States already has one of the highest maternal mortality rates in the developed world, and most obstetricians and gynecologists agree that the decision to overturn Roe led to an increase in maternal deaths.

Meanwhile, Trump has made it clear that if re-elected he would do nothing to mitigate the harm his administration has caused, and would instead go further by allowing states to surveil and prosecute pregnant women.

Meanwhile, Biden has restored funding to women’s health organizations around the world and fought for reproductive freedom in the United States. His administration has supported the right to travel across state lines for reproductive services, preserved access to mifepristone, a drug with a 20-year safety record, taken steps to protect fertility treatments such as IVF, and worked to make contraception more accessible. He has defended life-saving emergency medical care for pregnant women and helped educate doctors and patients about their legal rights.

Additionally, Biden has demonstrated his broader commitment to women and families by pushing for historic (and desperately needed) investments in the country’s care infrastructure.

The United States remains the only high-income country without paid family or medical leave, forcing many workers to choose between caring for their loved ones and bringing home a paycheck. As child care has become prohibitively expensive, taking up up to 31 percent of low-income families’ income, it often makes more economic sense for one parent to leave work to care for the children, and in most cases, that parent is a woman.

The caregiving crisis is not only pushing women out of the workforce, it’s costing the US economy billions of dollars, and unless something changes, many women will continue to be shut out of highly influential industries, from tech and venture capital to media and politics.

Despite the severity of the care crisis, elected officials have failed to put a comprehensive plan on the national agenda for decades. Not Biden.

Biden made care a centerpiece of his policy agenda during the 2020 campaign, and in the White House he has led efforts to make care more affordable for families and improve pay and the quality of work for care workers. He pushed for an expanded child tax credit, which resulted in many low-income families with children receiving monthly checks and cut child poverty nearly in half in just a year.

And he continues to fight for more affordable child care, in-home care for the elderly and disabled, and long-awaited paid family and medical leave. Simply put, Biden is the strongest advocate for caregivers in the history of the Oval Office.

While Trump boasts about rolling back women’s rights, Biden understands that the future of our country depends on women. That’s why I voted for Biden, and I urge anyone who cares about women and families to join me.