WASHINGTON, D.C. — Within a week of taking office on January 23, 2017, President Trump reinstated and expanded the Mexico City Policy, now called the Protecting Life in Global Health Assistance, which bans U.S. funding for abortions overseas. The expanded policy prohibits $9 billion in U.S. taxpayer money from funding foreign organizations that perform or actively promote abortion as a method of family planning, according to Liberty Counsel.
The pro-life policy applies 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, but not for abortion.
Government grants to 733 organizations were up for renewal, and the organizations had to demonstrate compliance with the Mexico City Policy in order to obtain funding. The U.S. State Department issued a new report February 7 revealing that 729 out of 733 organizations accepted the Trump administration’s requirement that they not commit or perform abortion as a condition of receiving aid money. Two organizations refused to cease promoting abortions and will not receive funding. These are International Planned Parenthood Federation (IPPF) and Marie Stopes International. The names of the other two of the four that did not accept the requirement are not yet public.
The Mexico City Policy was originally announced by President Reagan in 1984 and required nongovernmental organizations to agree that they “would neither perform nor actively promote abortion as a method of family planning in other nations” before receiving any federal funding. In 2009, President Barack Obama overturned the policy that provided a portion of over $400 million in federal funds to the abortion organizations like IPPF and Marie Stopes International for their foreign efforts.
The IPPF reports that its affiliates ended the lives of nearly one million unborn children in 2015 alone and claims to have provided 16.8 million abortion-related services over the past five years.
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