Eleven United States senators have demanded that President Donald Trump and Robert F Kennedy Jr, the secretary of health and human services, remove a federal website they claim directs pregnant women towards anti-abortion crisis pregnancy centres and “cease using federal resources” to promote such facilities.
The bipartisan group – which includes Bernie Sanders, Elizabeth Warren, Chuck Schumer, Ron Wyden and Tammy Duckworth – sent a letter on Wednesday saying the site, Moms.gov, “raises profound concerns about the health, safety and privacy of people who access this government website at a time when women’s health and reproductive rights face increasing attacks”.
The website was launched by the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) on Mother’s Day this year. The administration describes it as a resource for “new and expecting mothers” that “offers guidance and information to support the health and wellbeing of mothers and their families”. In a statement, the department said the site “supports expecting parents who are navigating difficult or unexpected pregnancies” and includes “information about pregnancy centers, federally qualified health centers, nutritional guidance”.
HHS Secretary Robert F Kennedy Jr has said the site delivers “critical tools to help parents foster healthy pregnancies and create brighter futures”, linking it to the “Make America Healthy Again” initiative.
Senators’ core accusations
In their letter, the lawmakers argued that Moms.gov was not about promoting women’s health but was instead “an attempt to use HHS resources to further strip women of their rights and privacy”. They specifically objected to a feature that directs users to what they call “unregulated and often non-medical anti-abortion facilities known as crisis pregnancy centers (CPCs)”.
The senators reminded the administration that “since the US supreme court took away the fundamental right to abortion care in Dobbs v Jackson Women’s Health Organization, 21 states have banned or severely restricted access to abortion, decimating access to care for tens of millions of people”. They added: “Yet instead of offering concrete resources to protect the health and safety of pregnant women and their families, the Trump Administration is using this website to highlight anti-abortion CPCs.”
The lawmakers requested that HHS “remove the pregnancy center link from Moms.gov and cease using federal resources to direct people to anti-abortion crisis pregnancy centers”. They also posed a series of questions seeking details about how the website was created and vetted.
What are crisis pregnancy centers?
The American College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists (ACOG) defines CPCs as “facilities that represent themselves as legitimate reproductive healthcare clinics providing care for pregnant people but actually aim to dissuade people from accessing certain types of reproductive health care, including abortion care and even contraceptive options”.
ACOG notes that staff at these centres “have no legal obligation to provide pregnant people with accurate information and are not subject to HIPAA or required by law to maintain client confidentiality”. Many CPCs are not licensed as medical facilities and operate without regulation.
Critics point to a pattern of deceptive practices. CPCs have been accused of disseminating false medical information about abortion risks, the effectiveness of contraception, and even misinforming women about how far along their pregnancy is. Some centres have been found to advertise services they do not provide, and there are concerns they may mislead patients about their ability to diagnose conditions such as ectopic pregnancies, potentially delaying vital medical care.
While there is no standard definition of a CPC and “differing perspectives exist regarding their characteristics and total number”, a Government Accountability Office (GAO) report from earlier this year estimated that between 2,400 and 2,800 CPCs were operating in the US in 2025. Other estimates range from 2,500 to 4,000. The majority of CPC funding comes from private sources, including individuals and non-governmental organisations, though a small number receive federal funds. The GAO report found that HHS directly obligated at least $34m in federal money to 16 CPCs between fiscal years 2018 and 2024, though the total amount remains unknown because of difficulties in tracking them through government spending data.
Major international and national health organisations, including ACOG, have expressed serious concerns about CPC practices.
Data privacy and false equivalency fears
Lawmakers have also raised alarms about data collection. The Moms.gov “Find Pregnancy Centers Near You” feature directs users to Option Line, a service managed by Heartbeat International, an organisation that has faced scrutiny over its data handling. Senators warned that sensitive health information gathered by CPCs could be shared with anti-abortion activists, and that users of a government website have a reasonable expectation of privacy.
A further criticism is that by listing unregulated CPCs alongside Federally Qualified Health Centers (FQHCs) – which are legitimate, regulated providers – Moms.gov creates a “false equivalency”. Opponents have described the site as a “propaganda tool for this administration’s dangerous anti-abortion, anti-woman agenda” and a “pronatalist, anti-woman website littered with misinformation”. Some critics link the messaging to a broader push that ties reproduction to nationalism and morality, pressuring women toward motherhood.
Broader political context
The senators’ letter follows a separate letter sent earlier this month by dozens of House Democrats, led by Representatives Suzan DelBene, Suzanne Bonamici, Emilia Sykes and Judy Chu. That group raised similar concerns and demanded answers from Kennedy about “HHS’s goals in developing, funding, reviewing and operating Moms.gov”.
The controversy comes amid broader Republican efforts on reproductive health. Critics note the Trump administration has previously tried to weaken birth control coverage requirements, and the Dobbs ruling has already been linked to potential negative impacts on maternal and infant mortality rates in states with restrictive abortion policies.
The White House has defended Moms.gov. Spokesperson Allison Schuster said in a statement that “only Far-Left lunatics could take issue with expanding access to life-saving resources for expectant mothers”. She described the site as a “comprehensive, one-stop shop for information on federal resources for maternal and infant health” and insisted that “nothing will stop the Trump Administration from Making America Healthy again, beginning with the critical step of creating brighter futures for all American children, born and unborn.” HHS press secretary Emily Hilliard added that the listed pregnancy centres and FQHCs “provide supportive services to expecting mothers”.
HHS itself did not immediately respond to a request for comment from the Guardian.