Page 260

The next Administration should ensure that USAID’s goal in service of its mission is to help protect and propel all members of society—women, children, and men—from conception to natural death. To do so, USAID’s Office of Women, Children, and Families should strive to ensure that communities have their basic human needs, without which they will be unable to thrive, met first and foremost. Basic human needs include equal and safe access to potable water, sanitation, food, education, health care, houses of worship, justice, pregnancy and family resource centers, working capital, electricity, technology, and business opportunities. The Office of Women, Children, and Families should implement the Geneva Consensus Declaration on Women’s Health and Protection of the Family and prioritize partnerships with local organizations, including faith-based organizations (FBOs).

Protecting Life in Foreign Assistance. Protecting life should be among the core objectives of United States foreign assistance. Shortly after taking office, however, President Biden issued a memorandum that reversed a myriad of pro-life policies and revoked the Protecting Life in Global Health Assistance (PLGHA) policy, widely known as the Mexico City Policy. Biden also restored funding to the United Nations Population Fund (UNFPA), which supports and implements China’s coercive abortion and sterilization regimen.

PLGHA requires foreign NGOs, as a condition of receiving assistance, to agree not to perform or actively promote abortions as a method of family planning in foreign countries. Previous pro-life Presidents beginning with Ronald Reagan applied these conditions to family planning assistance, but President Trump for the first time expanded the Mexico City Policy to protect “global health assistance furnished by all departments or agencies” (estimated to be $8.8 billion annually).

The Biden Administration restored abortion subsidies to pro-abortion NGOs including Planned Parenthood International and MSI Reproductive Choices. In reversing PLGHA, Biden declared a radical assault on the policy of protecting life, choosing instead to promote abortion on demand around the world under the guise of “sexual and reproductive health and rights.” USAID’s priority of funding the global abortion industry negates programs that promote life, women’s health, and the family.

Even under PLGHA, several loopholes allowed support for the global abortion industry to continue. International NGOs that perform and promote abortions overseas like Population Services International, Pathfinder, PATH, the Population Council, EngenderHealth, and WomanCare Global International continued to receive funding from USAID under PLGHA and now, under Biden, receive tens of millions more in U.S. taxpayer dollars in foreign assistance annually without any oversight. When the United Nations Secretariat promoted abortion and abortion-inducing drugs under the umbrella of “sexual and reproductive health” as an element of its COVID-19 Global Humanitarian Response Plan in May 2020, the exemptions in PLGHA for humanitarian aid and multilateral organizations