(C-Fam) In the weeks leading up to the second inauguration of President Donald Trump, international abortion groups are ringing alarm bells about the anticipated return—and likely expansion—of a policy that would render them ineligible for U.S. funding unless they agree to stop promoting or providing abortions.
Introduced by President Ronald Reagan as the Mexico City Policy, the pro-life executive order has been in place under Republican presidents ever since, up to the first Trump administration. Trump expanded it to cover all global health assistance.
On a webinar hosted by Columbia University’s School of Public Health, Rachel Clement of Population Action International (PAI) noted that if Trump expanded the policy to include all foreign assistance, it could affect $51 billion in aid.
Under the previous Trump administration, relatively few foreign organizations refused to certify the policy, opting to forego U.S. funding, but these included the international abortion federations Planned Parenthood and MSI Reproductive Choices (formerly Marie Stopes).
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Columbia University’s Sara Casey said that this effectively made the pro-abortion organizations into pariahs in the countries where they worked. “Certifying [organizations] were reluctant or unwilling to participate in meetings with organizations that provided abortion, even when those meetings were on another topic,” she said. “Non-certifying organizations sometimes found themselves excluded from meetings, even meetings that were convened by the ministry of health.”
Casey noted that there were a lot of “fractured collaborations” between organizations and “the breaking up of many longstanding or trusted partnerships” over the policy, as well as changes to referrals. “A certifying organization might stop referring clients for non-abortion care to an organization that declined to certify, so they might stop referring clients for family planning to a clinic that also provides abortions.”…
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Editor’s Note: Rebecca Oas, Ph.D. writes for C-Fam. This article first appeared in the Friday Fax, an internet report published weekly by C-Fam (Center for Family & Human Rights), a New York and Washington DC-based research institute (https://c-fam.org/). This article appears with permission.
Tell President Trump, RFK, Jr., Elon, and Vivek:
Stop killing America’s future. Defund Planned Parenthood NOW!
