President Donald Trump is implementing an executive order that not only prohibits non-governmental organizations (NGOs) that receive U.S. aid from performing abortions, but also directs the Secretary of State to expand that policy across most global health assistance funding.
Within days of his inauguration, Trump signed an executive order that reinstated the “Mexico City Policy,” which bans U.S. taxpayer funds for the provision or promotion of abortions overseas. The order also expanded and updated that policy by ensuring the ban on taxpayer funds for overseas abortions is in place across U.S. global health programs that provide assistance.
David Brody at CBN News reports that $8.8 billion will be appropriated to the State Department, the U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID), and the Defense Department – all of which must adhere to Trump’s expanded policy now called “Protecting Life in Global Health Assistance.”
The language of the policy is as follows:
I direct the Secretary of State, in coordination with the Secretary of Health and Human Services, to the extent allowable by law, to implement a plan to extend the requirements of the reinstated Memorandum to global health assistance furnished by all departments or agencies.
I further direct the Secretary of State to take all necessary actions, to the extent permitted by law, to ensure that U.S. taxpayer dollars do not fund organizations or programs that support or participate in the management of a program of coercive abortion or involuntary sterilization.
Brody observes that in prior versions of the Mexico City policy, “the funds only applied to family-planning assistance provided by USAID and the Department of State.”
“That was roughly $600 million,” he writes. “Now, it’s much more expansive as the Trump administration applies the policy to a much wider pool of money ($8.8 billion) within federal agency programs and includes Department of Defense programs as well.”
Brody reports a White House official said, “The pro-life policy will apply to global health assistance funding for international health programs, such as those for HIV/AIDS, maternal and child health, malaria, global health security, and family planning and reproductive health.”
The policy will not apply, however, to all U.S. funding. Humanitarian assistance, including migration and refugee-assistance activities, and USAID and Defense Department disaster and humanitarian-relief activities are excluded.
NGOs that refuse to accept the pro-life policy of the United States will not receive funds, but those funds will be given to other organizations that comply.
“Foreign NGOs that agree not to perform or actively promote abortion as a method of family planning, or provide financial support to any other foreign non-governmental organization that conducts such activities, will remain eligible for global health assistance funding,” the White House official reportedly said.
“The Executive Memorandum implemented today is one of the reasons pro-life voters worked to elect Donald Trump to the White House,” said Susan B. Anthony List president Marjorie Dannenfelser. “With the implementation of Protecting Life in Global Health Assistance, we have officially ceased exporting abortion to foreign nations.”
“No longer will we undermine the pro-life laws and cultural commitments of other countries by funding organizations like Marie Stopes International that obsessively promote and perform abortion,” Dannenfelser added.
The Obama administration allowed Marie Stopes International, a radical international promoter of abortion, to receive taxpayer funding for HIV/AIDS, maternal and child health and family planning.
Marie Stopes describes its pro-abortion mission as follows:
The core services we provide are contraception, safe abortion (where abortion is legally permitted) and post-abortion care. We work hard to make sure these services are high quality, affordable and accessible to as many people as possible.
…
We need to redouble our efforts to reach as many women as we can. And the only way to meet the challenges of the coming years is by being smarter about what services to provide, how to make them sustainable, and how to fund them. Our ‘Scaling-Up Excellence’ strategy sets out how we intend to do this over the next five years.
However, in 2007, Paul Cornellisson, Marie Stopes Programme Director for South Africa, admitted that his organization actually promotes illegal abortion.
“We do illegal abortions all over the world,” he boasted at a conference in London.
In December of last year, BBC reported that Marie Stopes was forced to temporarily suspend some abortion services due to a sharp rise in safety concerns and a lack of forthcoming information from the organization, which performs 70,000 abortions a year – about one-third of all abortions performed across England.
“If international health organizations want American taxpayer support, they must choose to provide health care over committing and promoting abortions,” said Lila Rose, president of Live Action, regarding Trump’s implementation of the policy. “Abortion is not health care; it’s the deliberate destruction of innocent human life.”
“We appreciate President Trump expanding this policy to end all taxpayer subsidies to international groups that commit and promote abortions, like the international arm of Planned Parenthood,” Rose adds.
During his presidential campaign, Trump outline a pro-life agenda for his administration, which included four policy commitments in a letter to pro-life leaders:
- Nominating pro-life justices to the U.S. Supreme Court
- Signing into law the Pain-Capable Unborn Child Protection Act, which would end painful late-term abortions nationwide
- Defunding Planned Parenthood as long as they continue to perform abortions, and reallocating their funding to community health centers that provide comprehensive health care for women
- Making the Hyde Amendment permanent law to protect taxpayers from having to pay for abortions
“Now that the president has put a stop to our tax dollars subsidizing foreign abortion providers and promoters, it’s time for Congress to finish the job here in the United States and stop the hundreds of millions of tax dollars going to the biggest abortion chain in America, Planned Parenthood,” Rose said. “The federal government’s most important duty is to protect human life, so it is unthinkable that our tax dollars fund a corporation that destroys the lives of over 320,000 preborn children each year right here at home.”
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