Trust, Influence, and Impact in 2024

RSI’s newly launched Project for Women and Families (PWF) was conceived out of the need for sensible, timely policy reforms that empower the modern American family. Women, in particular, bear the burden of outdated policies and regulations that make it challenging to both sustain a career and raise a family. To that end, the PWF takes on a broad portfolio of policy issues, such as access to contraception and in vitro fertilization (IVF); modernized telehealth rules to better accommodate busy families and eliminate healthcare deserts; labor flexibility for working parents; and the cost of raising a family, including childcare and parental leave.

This year, RSI established a new state-by-state explainer series, Navigating Women’s Health, that examines women’s health metrics in each state and offers policy recommendations relevant to that state. In early 2024, the team also spent time in multiple states with dozens of legislators to provide expertise on contraceptive policy, including testifying in the Tennessee legislature on misinformation and confusion surrounding contraceptive access. The team was featured on several podcasts to discuss how contraception relates to women’s economic mobility and the societal effects of access to contraception.

The PWF team contributed to the public discourse on current policy issues relevant to families, including having articles published in The Wall Street Journal on the declining American birth rate and in The Washington Post on maintaining reasonable—and widely popular—contraceptive policies. The team also published work analyzing what Congress could do to keep IVF legal and what the next Child Tax Credit should look like. PWF is taking on modern family issues and recommending new policy solutions that minimize government involvement in personal decisions, maximize government effectiveness in the social safety net, and allow individuals to thrive financially.