I was in the Rose Garden on Monday. Here’s what the order does, what it doesn’t, and what to watch.
On Monday, I was in the Rose Garden when the President signed the Executive Order on Advancing Women’s Health to Improve Outcomes in All Phases of Life. By Monday night, my phone was full of the same question asked a dozen different ways: so what does this actually do?
In the Rose Garden on Monday.
The headlines were short, the order is vague, and the structure underneath it is confusing, so let’s start with what existed before.
Two offices: HHS + NIH
Before Monday, there were two offices of women’s health within HHS:
- Office of Research on Women’s Health (ORWH). It sits in the NIH Director’s office, was established in 1990, and was written into law in 1993 (42 U.S.C. §287d). Its job is to coordinate women’s health research across all of NIH’s institutes, but with a budget of roughly $100 million it funds very little research directly.
- Office on Women’s Health (OWH). It sits in the Office of the Secretary at HHS and advises the Secretary on women’s health policy across all HHS agencies. It was established in 1991 and written into law by the Affordable Care Act in 2010 (42 U.S.C. §237a).
Now, Monday’s EO
The heart of the order is a new Women’s Health Division and a Women’s Health Task Force. The division will sit inside the National Institute of Child Health and Human Development (NICHD), part of the National Institutes of Health (NIH), and work alongside ORWH.
Because NICHD has a budget of approximately $1.7B, the new division can draw on existing funding right away. In FY25, NICHD spent approximately 30% of its budget on women’s health research (about $510 million). The next lift is securing additional FY27 funding for the division, and people I’ve talked to on the Hill and within HHS feel confident.
So how does this all fit together?
I drew this on a napkin for a reporter on Monday:
- Institute for Women’s Health (future state). Does not exist yet. Congress has to create and fund it, and advocates have asked for one for years, including in a National Academies report. The order does not create it.
- New Women’s Health Division. What the order creates. NICHD’s purpose in law already covers gynecologic and maternal health, so the division can start now.
- ORWH and OWH. ORWH keeps coordinating across all 27 NIH institutes, and OWH stays the policy arm at HHS.
What about the task force? Why is it run by a man?
It is technically run by both Robert F. Kennedy Jr. and Susie Wiles, President Trump’s Chief of Staff. The order names the roles, not the people, and eleven other officials sit on it by title. Its job is a comprehensive approach to women’s health across every stage of life, and the co-chairs can hold public hearings, meetings, roundtables, and similar events, as appropriate. The first meeting happened on Monday after the announcement.
Here is what I think is missing. The order sets no deadline and does not require a report, so what the task force produces and when is up to the co-chairs. I’ll follow up to see if they will do a public RFI, how our industry can get involved, and how they will measure success.
Does it have any money?
Some, but not new money. An executive order can’t appropriate funds, only Congress can, so it’s not accurate or fair to say “this doesn’t have any money.”
Because the new division will be housed within NICHD, it will be able to leverage the institute’s existing discretionary funding immediately. Given the bipartisan support for women’s health, both people on the Hill and at HHS are optimistic that Congress will appropriate additional funding in the next fiscal year.
For scale, the National Academies recommended about $15.7 billion in new funding over five years for women’s health research, and the coalition behind the Society for Women’s Health Research’s national strategy is asking Congress for $20 billion over ten years.
“So far, Congress has been the backstop.” |
Didn’t they cut women’s health funding?
Parts of it, yes. The Washington Post reported that NIH-funded projects including the word “women” fell 31% in 2025. Senate Appropriations Chair Susan Collins, a Republican, raised that with Secretary Kennedy in April and called it a problem if grants are screened for the word and then cut. NIH says its reviews are based on scientific merit. HHS also cut funding for the Women’s Health Initiative in April 2025, then restored it quickly after public backlash, according to The New York Times. And the FY26 budget request proposed cutting NIH by about 40%, which Congress rejected. So far, Congress has been the backstop.
What about the earlier orders it revoked? And abortion?
The order rescinded the earlier Biden executive order, but this is common as administrations change, and I wouldn’t read too much into it. This happens on both sides of the political spectrum. The work from that EO is already complete, the funding allocated, and the work continues. So nothing has been erased. The EO also stays away from abortion, which I would expect and is the political reality right now, but it does cover maternal health, infertility, and endometriosis.
What happens next
What I would watch:
- How the division is set up inside NICHD and works with ORWH.
- Whether the next appropriations cycle includes new money for the division. That is the real decision point, and where we can play the biggest role.
- What we start to hear from the task force about reports, RFIs, industry involvement, and more.
Final thought
Is the EO perfect? No. Do we want more for women’s health? Yes. But I’m a pragmatist, and our job is to work with whoever is in office and has the ability to change things, whichever party that is. Knowing which office does what, and what needs Congress, is the difference between reading the news and being able to act on it.
I’m doing a Q&A on all of the above on Friday, October 23 at 3pm ET. Bring your questions.
