Four nongovernmental organizations have gone without global aid funding from the U.S. because of abortion restrictions enforced by the Trump administration, according to an analysis from the State Department.
The State Department's report, which circulated Thursday, shows that 733 organizations received U.S. aid funding totaling $8.8 billion.
When he took office, President Trump reinstated the "Mexico City Policy," which prohibits dollars for U.S. aid from going toward organizations that provide or promote abortions. The provision is often dubbed the "global gag rule," and the Trump administration expanded it further than other Republican administrations have done, by expanding it to cover all healthcare funding, rather than funds aimed at family planning. Organizations may not receive U.S. funds even if they use separate funds for abortions.
International Planned Parenthood Federation and Marie Stopes International, an organization that provides contraception in Asia and Africa, were among the four organizations that no longer receive funding. The review, which recaps six months of the program, did not list the organizations, but those two were made public by Planned Parenthood.
Marjorie Dannenfelser, the president of Susan B. Anthony List, which opposes abortion, said that the latest findings indicate that the "dire prognostics" of abortion rights groups hadn't come true.
“The Trump administration’s pro-life policy has not reduced foreign assistance by a dime, but instead ensures that U.S. international aid partners act consistently to save lives, rather than promoting and performing abortion," she said. "Only a tiny minority of extreme pro-abortion groups have stubbornly refused to put the well-being of all women ahead of their agenda."
But Planned Parenthood called the report "misleading," saying it painted "an incomplete picture of both prime and sub-recipients in impacted countries." The report did not provide information about how many people would not receive reproductive health services.
“This incomplete review tells a misleading story that President Trump wants the public to hear," said Latanya Mapp Frett, executive director at Planned Parenthood Global. "The truth is that the effects of the global gag rule will be far reaching and deadly. The Trump-Pence administration has taken unprecedented steps to expand a lethal policy that deprives women around the world of the right to healthcare and full information to plan their futures."
She warned that the policy would result in a rise in unintended pregnancies as well as a rise in unsafe abortions.
The organization cited other examples of healthcare facilities that would be affected. An organization that provides assistance to people with HIV in Mozambique will lay off 130 staff, and an NGO in Botswana will have to close clinics in three districts.
In response to the actions in the U.S., the Dutch government partnered with governments in other countries, as well as the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation, to create a fund aimed at closing some of the gaps. The organization had raised $305 million as of its last report.
