Elections have consequences–and American elections have consequences around the globe. The “pro-bro” policies of the Trump administration are already having a very real and awful impact on the lives of people all over the world.
Nicholas Kristof wrote a great piece in the New York Times recently about the horrific things that Donald Trump and his Oval Office Boys Club are doing to impoverished people worldwide. They’re on a crusade to cut off funding to any international organization that has even a whiff of an association with abortion rights–whether the whiff is real or not.
The latest victim is the United Nations Population Fund, which has absolutely no connection with abortion services… unless you count the millions and millions of abortions that their birth control work has prevented over the years. But conservative conspiracy theory belief links the UNPF to forced abortions in China, in a manner The Lancet calls “shamelessly nonchalant with a lack of facts.”
In order to kowtow to the anti-abortion extremists, Trump has cut off ALL of the $75 million in funding that the US had been sending to the UNPF. That money helps the Fund to provide contraception, maternal care, and child health services. UNPF also leads the struggle against horrors like gender violence, child marriage, and female genital mutilation in over 150 countries.
The list of UNPF accomplishments is staggering. (See the sidebar in the Kristof article). In the past three years alone, they prevented 35 million unintended pregnancies, 11 million unsafe abortions, 93,000 maternal deaths, 272,000 genital mutilations of girls, 8.3 million sexually transmitted infections (via one billion condoms), and 188,000 H.I.V. infections. Oh, and their work has prevented 3.7 million abortions just last year.
Yet the Trump administration is denying the UNPF any funding, BECAUSE “HASHTAG PRO-LIFE.” This action will cost many people their lives, and Kristof spares no details explaining in just what horrible ways.
The Lancet article about the funding denial called on the world to “reject this misogyny.” Join with LPJL to RESIST the anti-choice agenda at home and try to roll back the damage this administration is already causing overseas.