Taxpayer-funded NIH study costs $495K to examine how ‘power and oppression’ affect abortion ‘access’

A pro-abortion study led by a Harvard professor has been granted more than $495,000 to study impacts to abortion access, the College Fix reported.

The study, titled “Enhancing Policy Impact for Reproductive Health Equity,” is led by Elizabeth Janiak, who in addition to teaching at Harvard also serves as director of social science research at Planned Parenthood League of Massachusetts.

Janiak’s primary research interest, according to her bio, is exploration of “how government and institutional policies create inequities in access to and quality of sexual and reproductive health (SRH) care, including contraceptive, abortion, and obstetric services.” 

“The World Health Organization affirms that sexual and reproductive health (SRH) services are integral to the wellbeing and flourishing of individuals and communities,” Janiak wrote in the abstract summarizing this NIH-funded study. “However, societal dynamics of power and oppression pattern access to these services, presenting disproportionate barriers to younger people, individuals who identify as Black, Indigenous, and people of color (BIPOC individuals), those with disabilities and chronic disease, individuals who are transgender or gender-nonconforming (TGNC individuals), and people of lower socioeconomic status.” 

Janiak also heads the Lab for Contraception and Abortion Research and Education in the Social Sciences at Brigham and Women’s Hospital. 

“We advance justice in care by grounding our analysis in a critical appraisal of the historical and contemporary power structures that influence reproductive health,” the lab website claims. “We leverage our power as academics in a progressive policy environment to work in solidarity with collaborators and colleagues across geographies.” 

The current project received $495,307 from the Eunice Kennedy Shriver National Institute of Child Health and Human Development, divided between $327,394 in direct costs and $167,913 in indirect costs. The study is active, unless cancelled, until August 2026. 

According to The Fix, Dr. Kurt Miceli of Do No Harm, said the study’s “indirect costs of $167,913 represent an overhead of approximately 34%.” 

“This is well in excess of the Trump Administration’s recent standard indirect cost rate on all grants of 15%,” Miceli added, noting as well that the use of taxpayer dollars to fund research “grounded in an intersectional framework” is “really a matter of priority.” 

“Resources are not unlimited, particularly in an age of budget deficits,” he said. “The NIH with its taxpayer dollars should focus on funding basic biomedical research that will improve the health of all people rather than funding research grounded in a political ideology.” 

The study drew attention as the Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE) has been actively cancelling NIH grants for previously-approved research focused on “woke” topics in the area of identity politics. 

DOGE, for example, announced on X last week that NIH had cancelled the following grants: 

• $620K for “an LGB+ inclusive teen pregnancy prevention program for transgender boys”; 

• $699K for studying “cannabis use” among “sexual minority gender diverse individuals”; 

• $740K for examining “social networks” among “black and Latino sexual minority men in New Jersey”; 

• $50K for assessing “sexual health” among “LGTBQ+ Latinx youth in an agricultural community”; 

• $75K for researching “structural racism.” 

Dr. Jay Bhattacharya, President Donald Trump’s nominee to lead NIH, said during his opening remarks at his confirmation hearing that he has five goals if he is to direct the agency. 

• First, NIH research should focus on research that solves the American chronic disease crisis.  

• Second, NIH-supported science should be replicable, reproducible, and generalizable. 

• Third, if confirmed, I will establish a culture of respect for free speech in science and scientific dissent at the NIH.  

• Fourth, the NIH must recommit to its mission to fund the most innovative biomedical research agenda possible, to improve American health. 

• Fifth, the NIH must embrace… and vigorously regulate… risky research that has the possibility of causing a pandemic. 

The Lion reached out to Janiak for comment but did not receive a response by publication.