How Trump’s Health Care Cuts Are Affecting Women Worldwide
Within his first week in office, President Donald Trump made it very clear as to where he stood on the subject of reproductive rights not only regarding women in the United States, but also around the world. Trump reinstated what is known as the Mexico City Policy, a law that bans all international organizations -for example, the United Nations, among others- from receiving funding from U.S. if they provide, inform, lobby or refer for abortion services.
Since then, many have expressed concern on how this might impact reproductive health services around the globe. However, at the time, it wasn’t clear just how much. Turns out, Trump’s order was more broad than it had been when other conservative presidents signed it. The Trump administration decided to eliminate funding for the United Nations Population Fund (UNFPA) -an organization that provides family planning and health care services for women and children in 150 countries- next year after claiming that the family planning organization supports abortion and forced sterilization in China, according to the State Department. This means this defunding decision will limit all of the country’s $9.5 billion in global health funding instead of just the $600,000 in family planning funding it was initially thought to impact. A State Department official said the money will be redirected to a U.S. Agency for International Development programs that support family planning and maternal and reproductive health activities in developing countries.
In a recent statement, UNFPA said it regrets the US decision to end funding, which it said is based on an “erroneous claim” that the agency supports coercive abortion or involuntary sterilisation in China. The UNFPA said its mission is “to ensure that every pregnancy is wanted, every childbirth is safe and every young person’s potential is fulfilled”.
“The support we received over the years from the government and people of the United States has saved tens of thousands of mothers from preventable deaths and disabilities, and especially now in the rapidly developing global humanitarian crises,” the statement continued.
Experts have voiced their concerns on how this would impact women worldwide, many worrying that it in fact will have a huge impact in many areas of global health care and according to the Nicholas Kristoff from the New York Times, who’s currently in Haiti, that’s exactly what’s happening.
First came the global gag rule, and now Trump’s recent decision to cut all U.S. contribution to the UNFPA has Kristoff arguing that Trump’s views are not pro-life, but rather the opposite.
“When President Trump and his (male) aides sit at a conference table deciding to cut off money to women’s health programs abroad, they call it a ‘pro-life’ move”, Kristoff writes. “Yet here in Haiti, I’ll tell you the result: Impoverished women suffer ghastly injuries and excruciating deaths. Washington’s new women’s health policies should be called ‘pro-death.'”
Kristoff goes on to explain that Trump’s health funding cuts have actually limited organizations’ abilities to prevent or treat diseases that impact women and children across the globe, which according to Kristoff is evident in Haiti, where one girl he profiles has never even heard of birth control until after she became pregnant at 16.
“It’s not that these horrific conditions are caused by U.S. policy,” Kristoff states, “but Trump is now halting all funds for many organizations working tirelessly to prevent this suffering. First came the “global gag rule,” ending funding to overseas health aid groups linked in some way to abortion, including counseling that mentions it as an option.”
Kristoff even points out that the birth control provided by the U.N. Population Fund helped girls and women avoid more than 3.7 million abortions just last year alone, arguing that’s a reason to support the U.N. fund, not slash it.
For more on why Kristoff thinks Trump’s health funding cuts are “pro-death,” head over to the New York Times.