America rightly celebrates and invests in medical breakthroughs like cancer therapies and artificial intelligence diagnostics. Yet research and development in reproductive and maternal health still struggles to gain the same vital support.

This funding gap directly contributes to the country's maternal mortality rate, which remains the highest among wealthy nations, and the consequences are especially severe in the South.

The Gates Foundation's recent $2.5 billion pledge to women's health research is a significant step for global research and development. By comparison, the U.S. federal government spent just over $1 billion on maternal and reproductive health research in 2023.

Philanthropic funding is even smaller: Less than 2 percent of U.S. foundation health giving supports these areas, and most of that goes to direct services, not research.

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