According to a State Department report issued Wednesday, just four out of the 733 organizations that receive funding overseas declined to the terms of the Trump administration’s expanded Mexico City policy, Protecting Life in Global Health Assistance, that bars U.S. funding from going to organizations that provide or promote abortion overseas.
Unsurprisingly, the organizations that have declined to receive funding over the new rule include the International Planned Parenthood Federation and Marie Stopes International. The other two organizations were not named by the State Department and have not publicly commented.
“We could never agree to its conditions,” Marie Stopes International said in a statement. The abortion company said that means “we now face a $30 million annual funding gap…From 2018, many of our programs are facing a cliff-edge, and the gap will only continue to grow.”
Planned Parenthood explained on its website last year their opposition to the rule, acknowledging that they will lose $100 million in funding.
They wrote that the organization “will not sign a policy that denies human rights and puts the lives of women at risk.”
They added that they plan to “work with governments and donors to bridge the funding and service gaps” created by the rule, and “ensure that women can exercise their rights and access safe abortion and family planning.”
The administration’s report said that out of the 733 organizations who had funding come up for renewal under the new rule, 729 have agreed to the terms and have had their grants approved. They add that 500 more grants have not been subjected to the new funding rules as of Sept. 30, 2017, but they will be by the end of the current fiscal year. The State Department will conduct another review of the policy on December 15, 2018.
The State Department added that when one aid partner declines funding, the money is sent to other organizations so the amount of aid will remain the same.
"It is too early to analyze systematically what effect, if any, this will have on programming," they noted. "When a partner declines to agree to the policy and the department or agency reprograms funds to other organizations, the amount of funding directed to respective recipient countries will remain the same."
Based on the State Department’s review of the policy so far, the impact seems minimal.
Nevertheless, some world leaders and celebrities claim the policy is extremely harmful. Grammy-nominated singer Halsey even claimed last June that women will die due to the new rule.
The Trudeau government in Canada announced in July that it would spend $241.5-million on programs losing funding due to the new U.S. rule.
However, pro-life advocates in the U.S. and abroad are thrilled by the rule’s implementation.
“The overwhelming 99.5% compliance rate shows that the dire prognostications of abortion advocates have not come true,” Susan B. Anthony List President Marjorie Dannenfelser commented. “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. Only a tiny minority of extreme pro-abortion groups have stubbornly refused to put the wellbeing of all women ahead of their agenda.”
Michael Anthony Mapa, Chairman, Filipinos for Life, thanked President Trump in a statement.
“The U.S. Government should not be spending precious taxpayer dollars to promote the killing of babies around the world,” he said. “That is a crime against humanity. I’m glad that President Trump is putting an end to federal funds to promote it.”
"Indian women need life, dignity, education and empowerment, not abortion,” Carmel Nisha Pius Franco, Director, UYIRKKURAL commented. “We have been exploited through decades-long population control propaganda which has resulted in at least 300 million abortions (16 million abortions being performed in India in just one year) and dangerous sub-replacement fertility rate. Americans do not want their hands in the blood of innocent children killed in India.”