WASHINGTON, D.C. (LifeSiteNews) — The U.S. State Department under the Trump administration has indicated it intends to go through with the destruction of approximately $10 million worth of contraceptives whose distribution to Africa has been canceled by rule changes against taxpayer funding of abortion.
During a July 29 State Department press briefing, a reporter asked for an update about “millions of dollars’ worth of contraceptives stocked in Belgium that are due to be incinerated in France […] I know that the Belgian government is trying to find alternative solutions. Is the U.S. government ready to find alternative solutions or are they destined to be destroyed?”
“Well, I do – I want to have that taken back. This is a situation that changes each day,” State Department spokeswoman Tammy Bruce responded. “This is a situation regarding birth control and other mechanisms that could be used – first of all, that would violate our Mexico City policy regarding the use of abortifacients, but also the use of some elements that could be used in a kind of forced sterilization framework that some nations do apply, which also we will not facilitate.”
“I think this was a purchase from the previous administration, and so we’re dealing with that,” she added. Bruce’s comments indicated the planned disposal is still on track but did not conclusively rule out a pause or a different decision.
The Department of State later said that “a preliminary decision” was made to destroy certain “abortifacient” contraceptives, The Hill reports, and that the Kemp-Kasten amendment also bars the federal government from aiding any entity with a program of “coercive abortion or involuntary sterilization,” which affects “non-abortifacient contraceptives provided as assistance to entities that do not make the commitment required under the policy.”
The Center for Family & Human Rights (C-Fam) notes that the stockpile, which includes birth control pills, implants, shots, and IUDs, is valued at $10 million and that two prominent international abortion facilitators, International Planned Parenthood Federation (IPPF) and MSI Reproductive Choices (formerly Marie Stopes), had offered to buy the drugs, a deal that would have violated the Mexico City Policy. Population control in Africa has been a particular focus of both organizations and of the United Nations Population Fund.
Seventy-seven percent of the supply had been intended to go to five African countries, according to IPPF: Kenya, Tanzania, Zambia, Mali, and Congo. The abortion giant estimated that the loss will mean a 28 percent reduction in Tanzania’s “needed” contraceptives, a 24 percent reduction in Mali’s, and an almost 14 percent reduction of Kenya’s annual so-called “contraceptive need.”
Many contraceptive methods, including birth control pills and IUDs, acts as abortifacients. Moreover, birth control has been found to cause serious medical harm to women.
READ: Woman says Mirena IUD tore through her uterus, caused kidney failure
Within days of returning to office, President Donald Trump signed executive orders to reinstate the Mexico City Policy governing foreign aid and direct federal agencies to recognize the Hyde Amendment’s limits on dispensing federal money domestically.
The Mexico City Policy forbids non-governmental organizations from using taxpayer dollars for elective abortions abroad. President Ronald Reagan first instituted the policy in 1984, and President George W. Bush reinstated it in 2001. For decades, it has been taken for granted that Democrat presidents rescind the policy shortly after taking office and Republican presidents restore it. Restoring the policy was one of the first acts of Trump’s first term, and he said on the 2024 campaign trail he would “consider” bringing it back.
Likewise, the Hyde Amendment is traditionally included every year in federal budgets with little objection and has been estimated to have saved more than two million lives since its adoption decades ago by forbidding most taxpayer dollars from directly funding abortions except for cases of rape, incest, or alleged threat to a mother’s life. President Joe Biden proposed removing it in the budgets he submitted to Congress and worked throughout his presidency to distribute funds to entities involved in abortion.
Abortion, the destruction of an innocent unborn baby in his or her mother’s womb, is always gravely unjust and never necessary to protect a mother’s health.
Trump has also cut millions in pro-abortion subsidies by freezing U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID) spending.
In March, the administration froze Title X “family planning” grants to nonprofits it said violated its executive orders on immigration and diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI) initiatives, including Planned Parenthood affiliates in nine states.
In July, Trump signed into law his controversial “One Big Beautiful Bill Act” (BBB), a wide-ranging policy package that includes a one-year ban on federal tax dollars going through Medicaid to any entity that commits abortions for reasons other than rape, incest, or supposed threats to the mother’s life, although that provision is currently held up by a legal challenge.
Other Republicans have proposed standalone measures to fully cut off Planned Parenthood’s government funding: the No Taxpayer Funding for Abortion and Abortion Insurance Full Disclosure Act, which permanently bans federal funds from being used for abortion; and the Defund Planned Parenthood Act, which disqualifies Planned Parenthood and its affiliates specifically. But they would require 60 votes to make it through the Senate.
