Trump Administration Expands Rules for Foreign Nonprofits That Promote Abortions
The Trump administration wants to expand its ban on funding foreign nonprofits performing or promoting abortions, a move that, according to critics, could further restrict the healthcare access across the world.
The Department of Defense, President Donald Trump's base, is pleased to move that the National Aeronautics and Space Administration and General Services Administration released the proposed rule on Monday. The move aims to extend the "Protecting Life in Global Health Assistance." This policy encompasses global health grants and cooperative agreements to apply to contracts, as per CNN. The rule applies to the Health and Human Services, State Department, the Department of Defense, and the U.S. Agency for International Development.
After the Election day, the proposed rule will end as it now faces a 60day comment period. The deadline marks another appeal by the Trump administration to abortion rights opponents in the run-up till the general election. Trump highlighted his anti-abortion stance in recent weeks. In President Trump's judicial nominees and vice presidential running mate Mike Pence, Trump appeared with anti-abortion groups in different swing states.
A month after a State Department review, the rule also found that the policy as it stands hurt efforts to treat HIV/AIDS and tuberculosis and deliver nutritional assistance. Among other programs, the rule has a significant impact in sub-Saharan Africa.
Through contracts, global health funding could account for almost 40% of all budget affected by the rule, based on data from 2013 through 2015. On Monday, the provision expanding the policy should take effect, said Jen Kates, director and senior vice president of global health and HIV policy at the Kaiser Family Foundation.
Kate told CNN, "This is that step that (the administration) had not yet taken. I think the goal is for the policy to apply to as much global health funding as possible."
The Trump administration reinstates the "Mexico City Policy" that previously impacted family planning assistance through presidential memorandum and extended the policy to all applicable health funding under the "Protecting Life in Global Health Assistance." For some time, plans for the additional requirement had been underway.
According to the Government Accountability Office, organizations that continue promoting or performing abortions stood to lose U.S.health aid under the policy, affecting more than 1,300 global health projects. In 2017-2018, an estimated $12 billion in the U.S.assistance. The Government Accountability Office is an independent, nonpartisan agency that works for Congress.
From the beginning, the policy targets to apply grants, contracts, and cooperative agreements. The USAID and the State Department pursued applying the policy to contracts required to create new rules by 2018.
In a statement on Monday, Monica Kerrigan, executive director of Planned Parenthood Global, slammed the proposed rule. "As COVID-19 continues to take lives and devastate communities, the administration is knowingly moving to expand this policy," Kerrigan said.
For Kerrigan, there is no excuse for the bold disregard of people's health and rights. The federal assistance money foe abortion has had restrictions since 1973. The ban was extended to foreign groups receiving federal aid in 1985.
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