Copyright: Getty Images The Trump administration has proposed to cut all support for international family planning and reproductive health in its budget proposal for 2018. This amounts to a budget of $607.5 million. The budget cut is unprecedented.
The Guttmacher Institute calculated that the end of US support for family planning and reproductive health programmes would result in 3.3 million additional abortions, 15,000 more maternal deaths, 8 million more unplanned pregnancies and 26 million more women and couples with no access to family planning.
The budget proposal follows the announcement of the expansion of the Global Gag Rule (or Mexico City Policy) from an envelope of $600 million to one of $8billion. This means the GGR will directly impact the uptake of HIV and AIDs, maternal and child health, malaria and other international health programmes. Concretely this means that organisations receiving US support for the uptake of HIV, TB or malaria will need to sign up to the GGR if they want to continue receiving support.
The expansion of the GGR and the proposed budget cuts in family planning illustrate the influence of a relatively small but well-organised American anti-abortion lobby over the current Trump administration. The measurements are also a consequence of Trump’s intention to cut back development cooperation. The measurements go directly against the international agreement of universal access to family planning and reproductive health services by 2030, the deadline of the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development.
The budget proposal follows the announcement of the expansion of the Global Gag Rule (or Mexico City Policy) from an envelope of $600 million to one of $8billion. This means the GGR will directly impact the uptake of HIV and AIDs, maternal and child health, malaria and other international health programmes. Concretely this means that organisations receiving US support for the uptake of HIV, TB or malaria will need to sign up to the GGR if they want to continue receiving support.
The expansion of the GGR and the proposed budget cuts in family planning illustrate the influence of a relatively small but well-organised American anti-abortion lobby over the current Trump administration. The measurements are also a consequence of Trump’s intention to cut back development cooperation. The measurements go directly against the international agreement of universal access to family planning and reproductive health services by 2030, the deadline of the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development.
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