In Grand Rapids, Jill Biden hails Betty Ford for her lasting mark on women’s health care

First Lady Jill Biden sits on stage at the Gerald R. Ford Presidential Foundation's annual First Ladies Luncheon in Grand Rapids, Michigan on April 26, 2024. (Photo: Anna Liz Nichols)

“Well, what would Betty Ford do?”

In a raspy voice, first lady Jill Biden told attendees that’s what she was thinking before arriving to headline the Gerald R. Ford Presidential Foundation’s annual First Ladies Luncheon. 

Biden said she woke up feeling under the weather and without her voice. She didn’t know how she would deliver a speech at the event in Grand Rapids, where former first lady Betty Ford grew up. But as an American who loved Ford as first lady and all she did for women’s health care by letting the world know about her battle with breast cancer while in the White House, Biden said she knew she wanted to come to the event.

“Betty, I’m here for you,” Biden said, looking up and then yielding the podium to Dr. Carolyn Mazure, chair of the White House Women’s Health Research Initiative to deliver the speech on her behalf.

This year marks 50 years since Ford was diagnosed with breast cancer in 1974 and made the decision that was unheard of at the time: She talked about it.

“Where women’s health issues are concerned, American history is divided into two unequal periods: Before Betty and After Betty,” Biden’s speech quoted from American Historian Richard Norton Smith’s eulogy at Ford’s funeral in 2011. 

Ford said at an American Cancer Society Dinner on Nov. 7, 1975, “I just cannot stress enough how necessary it is for women to take the time out of their active lives and take an interest in their own health and their own body. Too many women are so afraid of breast cancer, that they endanger their lives. These fears of being less of a woman are very real and it’s important to talk about the emotional side effects. We have to speak up honestly.”

Ford’s public disclosure of breast cancer and vocal advocacy for self-screening and routine checkups led to the “Betty Ford Blip” wherein a stark increase of women sought out screening and early intervention for cancer diagnoses.

Ford did not waste her moment, Biden’s speech said, taking it with grace, as a voice of advocacy for accessing different forms of health care, including resources for addiction, another personal battle Ford made public.

Not every example Ford set should be followed, her daughter, Susan Ford Bales, told attendees, advising them that should they find themselves in the Cabinet Room in the White House, they shouldn’t strike a dance pose on the table like her mother did. 

“There was a time when words of breast cancer would never be uttered publicly and most certainly never by America’s first lady and then, ladies and gentlemen, there was Betty,” Bates said. “There was a time when the stigma on prescription drugs and alcohol addiction was as cynical as it was cruel, most often it was confused, incorrectly, with individual moral failure, and a failure caused solely by personal choice and then, ladies and gentlemen, there was Betty.”

First Lady Jill Biden (right) sits with Susan Ford Bales (left) daughter of former First Lady Betty Ford at the Gerald R. Ford Presidential Foundation's annual First Ladies Luncheon in Grand Rapids, Michigan on April 26, 2024. (Photo: Anna Liz Nichols)

First Lady Jill Biden speaks briefly at the Gerald R. Ford Presidential Foundation's annual First Ladies Luncheon in Grand Rapids, Michigan on April 26, 2024. (Photo: Anna Liz Nichols)

Dr. Carolyn Mazure, chair of the White House Women’s Health Research Initiative, gives First Lady Jill Biden's speech at the Gerald R. Ford Presidential Foundation's annual First Ladies Luncheon in Grand Rapids, Michigan on April 26, 2024. (Photo: Anna Liz Nichols)

“Betty, I’m here for you,” First Lady Jill Biden says at the Gerald R. Ford Presidential Foundation's annual First Ladies Luncheon in Grand Rapids, Michigan on April 26, 2024. (Photo: Anna Liz Nichols)

First Lady Jill Biden sits on stage at the Gerald R. Ford Presidential Foundation's annual First Ladies Luncheon in Grand Rapids, Michigan on April 26, 2024. (Photo: Anna Liz Nichols)

First Lady Jill Biden (right) sits with Susan Ford Bales (left), daughter of former First Lady Betty Ford, at the Gerald R. Ford Presidential Foundation's annual First Ladies Luncheon in Grand Rapids, Michigan on April 26, 2024. (Photo: Anna Liz Nichols)

First Lady Jill Biden waves goodbye at the Gerald R. Ford Presidential Foundation's annual First Ladies Luncheon in Grand Rapids, Michigan on April 26, 2024. (Photo: Anna Liz Nichols)

Former first lady Betty Ford stamp | USPS image

But Bates said in reflecting on how to express to guests the deep feelings she and her mother would share in having Biden come to her mom’s hometown, it made her think of what everyone should learn from the two first ladies.

“My thoughts kept coming back to the great work that mom and our guest each carried out for decades. History now allows us to see the bedrock connections between these two remarkable ladies,” Ford said “Each of them had their moment in time. Each of them had their moment to make a difference. So in short, they had one chance at forever. And, oh my, ladies and gentlemen, did both of them make that moment count.”

Health care is not always accessible to women, Biden’s speech said, and every woman has a story where they couldn’t find an answer to their health issue or their pain was undermined by a care provider.

“You know her, she’s the woman who gets debilitating migraines, but doesn’t know why and can’t find treatment options that work for her. She’s the woman going through menopause who visits her doctor and leaves with more questions than answers even though half the country will go through menopause at some point in their lives,” Biden’s speech said.

Biden’s speech noted all the women whose heart attacks aren’t recognized by doctors because their symptoms don’t look like a man’s symptoms.

“Even though we are half of the population, and women’s health is under study, and research is underfunded. Too many studies have left women out and too many of the medications, treatments and medical textbooks are based on men and their bodies,” Biden’s speech said. “This has created gaps in our understanding of conditions that mostly affect women, only affect women, or affect women and men differently, leaving women seeking health care in the medical world largely designed for men.”

So even with Ford’s achievements having brought a new era to women’s health care, Biden’s speech calls for a new era, a fundamental change in how the nation approaches and funds women’s health care research.

That’s what the White House Women’s Health Research Initiative is about, Biden’s speech said. In March, President Joe Biden issued an executive order calling for a host of changes to health care research, including investments in women’s health care research, filling the gap in research for women’s health post-menopause, research on environmental factors impacting women’s health care and more.

Change can’t come overnight, Biden’s speech said, but if Betty has taught the nation one thing, it’s that small, everyday acts will lead to big things. With daily consistent efforts, there can be a future where women have answers to their health care needs.

“Mrs. Ford was extraordinary and at her core, she was always Betty Bloomer from Grand Rapids, Mich.,” Biden’s speech said. “Even as she soared to great heights, she was also grounded. Every woman can see a part of herself in Betty and in her resilience and triumph, we found our own strength: ‘If Betty can do it, I can do it.’”

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