Friday, March 29, 2024

President Trump Cuts Funding to UN Agency over Forced Abortions

The Trump Administration announced this week it would be withdrawing $32.5 million in funding to the United Nations Population Fund (UNFPA), due to the agency’s alleged partnership with a Chinese population control program which supports coercive abortions. The money will instead be transferred to similar programs within the U.S. Agency for International Development.

According to a memorandum from the State Department, the UN Population Fund partners with the Chinese National Health and Family Planning Commision, which is responsible for overseeing China’s infamous two-child policy. The UNFPA responded in a statement arguing that it “refutes this claim, as all of its work promotes the human rights of individuals and couples to make their own decisions, free of coercion or discrimination,” contradicting the State Department’s findings.

This is just the latest of many measures the Trump Administration has taken to follow through on the pro-life promises the president made during his campaign. In his first week as president, Trump re-established the Mexico City Policy, preventing U.S. foreign aid from going to support NGOs that promote or fund abortion. And just last week, Vice President Mike Pence acted cast the tie-breaking vote in the Senate to pass a measure allowing states to redirect family planning funding from abortion-giant Planned Parenthood to other health facilities. The nomination of pro-life Judge Neil Gorsuch to the Supreme Court, however, is perhaps the most important step the president has taken to promote pro-life policy.

Though President Trump’s decision to withdraw American funds from the UN agency was based on the grounds that the agency’s law supports forced abortions, a practice opposed by conservatives and liberals alike, many on the left are already protesting the move as an assault on women’s health care. Nevertheless, the president has also drawn praise from opponents of China’s two-child policy who argue the U.S. should have no part in supporting such obvious violations of human rights.

Photo credit: sanjitbakshi via Flickr, CC BY 2.0

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