Pro-Life Victory: White House Launches “Protecting Life in Global Health Assistance”

Earlier this year, I wrote about the significant pro-life victory when President Trump reinstated Ronald Reagan’s Mexico City Policy to prohibit the use of U.S. taxpayer money in foreign aid to organizations that either fund or promote abortions around the world. President Trump did exactly what every previous Republican president since Reagan did, as laid out in our comprehensive legal memo on the policy.

But yesterday, the White House launched an expanded version of the Mexico City Policy called “Protecting Life in Global Health Assistance.”

This is significant purely based on the amount of foreign aid that will now only go to organizations that realize the best thing for public health is to protect every single human life, no matter how small.

The old version of the Mexico City Policy only applies to an account of about $575 million each year. The new “Protecting Life in Global Health Assistance” program applies to $8.8 billion in foreign aid, a dramatic expansion in the policy that ensures the U.S. foreign policy truly stands up for a founding principle of our country – each individual’s God-given right to life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness.

Now the policy prevents $8.8 billion U.S. taxpayer dollars in foreign aid from going to organizations that perform or promote abortion. This is a significant and expansive pro-life victory.

Predictably, the big abortion machine instantly kicked into high gear, spreading its lies and the abortion distortion, calling the new policy “devastating,” “anti-woman,” and disregarding “the lives of the world’s most vulnerable women.”

Enough is enough. We’ve been fighting the battle for decades to defund Planned Parenthood and other abortion providers who look out for nothing but their bottom line. They’re lying; they’re losing; and they know it.

Here are the facts:

• Protecting Life in Global Health Assistance applies to about $8.8 billion in foreign aid funds distributed to foreign NGOs through the State Department, Pentagon, and USAID.
• It does NOT reduce the total amount of global health assistance being used to support health programs around the world, and the policy takes special steps to ensure humanitarian assistance and lifesaving HIV/AIDS work through PEPFAR continue to provide services uninterrupted – preventing the disruption of lifesaving services around the world.
• USAID and other U.S. taxpayer dollars will continue to be on the front lines treating the most vulnerable women and children, including injuries and illnesses from botched abortions to both women and newborn children.
• This is fundamentally about one thing – U.S. dollars should not be used to fund abortions or the promotion of abortions because the United States should clearly stand on the side of life and helping the vulnerable around the world.

This week marks a monumental pro-life victory – one that we’ve been working toward for decades. America must always stand for life and the most vulnerable among us.