The Trump administration’s funding cuts are protecting unborn babies as they hurt two of the largest abortion chains in the world.
Marie Stopes International and the International Planned Parenthood Federation (IPPF) received millions of taxpayer dollars from Americans under pro-abortion President Barack Obama. But during President Donald Trump’s first week in office, he signed the Mexico City Policy to stop funding to international groups that promote and provide abortions.
This week, NPR reported about how the funding cuts are affecting the abortion groups in Kenya and other parts of Africa.
Family Health Options Kenya, an affiliate of IPPF, lost $2 million in U.S. funding (60 percent of its budget) because its 14 clinics refused to stop aborting unborn babies, All Africa reports.
It recently closed one clinic and soon may close a second, said Melvine Ouyo, a nurse for the abortion group. She said they also had to lay off six staff members.
“It feels painful knowing that someone would benefit from your education, your passion, your career and you cannot do that,” she complained to NPR. “It kills your morale.”
But her clinics could continue to provide true, life-saving health care if they do just one thing – stop aborting unborn babies.
From the report, it appears that the clinics used American taxpayer dollars to directly fund abortions in Africa:
Though abortion is legal under Kenyan law if the health or well-being of the mother is at risk, some pregnant women and girls who now lack access to medical care [abortion] because of the funding cuts are resorting to unsafe measures out of desperation. They visit “curtain clinics,” she says — secret spaces run by people who aren’t nurses or doctors — or use household items like crochet needles to terminate their pregnancies.
NPR’s focus on Kenya is interesting, given the recent allegations against Marie Stopes in that country.
Late last year, parents and community leaders in Kitui, Kenya were outraged after learning that Marie Stopes workers allegedly came into their children’s school and implanted long-lasting contraceptive devices into girls as young as 14 without their parents’ knowledge or consent.
Marie Stopes also has been accused of doing hundreds of illegal, unsafe abortions in Africa.
But NPR did not mention either of these matters.
Here’s more from the report:
The full impact of [Trump’s] order won’t be felt until September. That’s when the U.S. government fiscal year comes to an end. At that point, every international organization that does not comply with the order will be excluded from U.S. funding, says Marjorie Newman-Williams, president of Marie Stopes International, an organization that provides contraception and safe abortion in dozens of countries.
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But health groups that aren’t complying with the policy are already feeling the effects. The U.S. has pulled the plug on funds that had been previously allocated but not yet spent prior to the Trump order. “Marie Stopes can talk about its own sad stories of programs that have had to close,” says Newman-Williams. Its outreach services, which were funded by USAID in countries like Uganda, Kenya, Senegal, Madagascar, Pakistan and Myanmar, have already stopped, she says.
That’s the case for Family Health Options Kenya, Kenya’s oldest provider of sexual and reproductive health services.
In February, a report by the U.S. Department of State found that just four of more than 700 groups that received U.S. tax dollars for foreign aid refused to comply with the new pro-life policy.
The Mexico City Policy, initially implemented under President Ronald Reagan, prohibits international aid groups from receiving tax dollars if they promote or provide abortions overseas. Trump reinstated the policy during his first week in office and later expanded it to all federal agencies.
Previous news reports indicated that two of the four groups that refused to comply are IPPF and Marie Stopes International.
According to the Susan B. Anthony List, IPPF performed more than 1 million abortions in 2016, an increase of 13.5 percent over 2015, and received more than $27 million in U.S. government grants in 2015-2016.
Under the Obama administration, the British-based abortion chain Marie Stopes International also received taxpayer funding. Like Planned Parenthood in America, Marie Stopes has a shoddy reputation, with one recent report showing about 400 botched abortions in a two-month period.
