Pride Month signals to the international community that the United States is abandoning the advancement of LGBTQ rights as a foreign policy priority." Abortion and contraception Gillibrand supports abortion rights, stating on her Senate website, "I will always protect a woman's right to choose—no matter what." Gillibrand has voted in favor of federal funding of embryonic stem cell research, contraception, and supporting United Nations Population Fund programs. In 2010 Gillibrand voted against Ben Nelson's proposed amendment to the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act which would have prohibited the government from allowing insurance plans that cover abortion in a national healthcare exchange. She expressed strong opposition to House Republicans' No Taxpayer Funding for Abortion Act in early 2011, stating, in her opinion, that the act "disregards women’s rights and restricts the ability of women to access affordable health care." Agriculture In March 2019, Gillibrand was one of thirty-eight senators to sign a letter to United States Secretary of Agriculture Sonny Perdue warning that dairy farmers "have continued to face market instability and are struggling to survive the fourth year of sustained low prices" and urging his department to "strongly encourage these farmers to consider the Dairy Margin Coverage program." In May 2019, Gillibrand and eight other Democratic senators sent a letter to Agriculture Secretary Perdue where they criticized the USDA for purchasing pork from JBS USA and wrote that it was "counterproductive and contradictory" for companies to receive funding from "U.S. taxpayer dollars intended to help American farmers struggling with this administration's trade policy." The senators requested the department "ensure these commodity purchases are carried out in a manner that most benefits the American farmer’s bottom line—not the business interests of foreign corporations." In June 2019, Gillibrand and Republican Lisa Murkowski announced the Summer Meals Act of 2019, legislation altering the Summer Food Service Program of the Agriculture Department to grant more children access to summer meals in addition to providing transportation for children in rural and hard-to-reach areas to aid their access of summer meals along with imposing flexibility to the program so children can have more than one meal. In June 2019, Gillibrand and eighteen other Democratic senators sent a letter to USDA Inspector General (IG) Phyllis K. Fong with the request that the IG investigate USDA instances of retaliation and political decision-making and asserted that not conducting an investigation would mean these "actions could be perceived as