What happened
Senators Jeanne Shaheen (D-N.H.) and Lisa Murkowski (R-Alaska) sent a letter to Secretary of State Marco Rubio asking him to release $608 million in international family planning funds from the fiscal year 2026 appropriations bill and $1.7 million worth of already-purchased contraceptive products for women in the Democratic Republic of the Congo's east, where an Ebola outbreak is underway. They also requested a "humanitarian exemption" to allow U.S. support for the UN Population Fund (UNFPA) to resume sexual and reproductive health work in the region.
Why it matters
The Trump administration has frozen family planning aid globally. In the affected areas, 642,000 women of reproductive age—including an estimated 37,820 pregnant women—lack access to reproductive health services during the crisis. Ebola infection during pregnancy carries a nearly 100% fetal loss rate and severe maternal hemorrhage risk, so the senators argue reproductive health support is integral to the Ebola response itself, not separate from it.
What to watch
Whether Secretary Rubio acts on the request to unfreeze the funds and grant a humanitarian exemption for UNFPA, which President Trump withdrew the U.S. from earlier this year.
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The letter reflects a bipartisan effort to counter the Trump administration's global freeze on family planning aid, which the senators frame not as a separate health initiative but as an essential component of Ebola outbreak response. By anchoring their request in the specific epidemiological risk—near-total fetal loss and severe hemorrhage for pregnant women infected with Ebola—they are attempting to redefine reproductive health support as emergency humanitarian aid rather than a policy disagreement over contraception funding. The administration's withdrawal from the UN Population Fund earlier this year has compounded the issue in the affected region, leaving a gap in sexual and reproductive health programming that the senators argue directly undermines Ebola containment and maternal survival.
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