Trump Would Rather Let Birth Control Expire Than Give It to Africans as Aid

The Trump administration is allowing a stockpile of nearly million worth of contraceptives to expire in a Belgian warehouse despite pleas from nonprofit organizations to allow them to deliver the life-saving aid intended for low-income women primarily in sub-Saharan Africa Earlier this year the State Department stated plans to incinerate the contraceptives which were originally intended for distribution by the U S Agency for International Progress before Trump dismantled it The medication includes million worth of IUDs implants and birth control pills specific of which will get too old to deliver starting in December An estimate from the Guttmacher Institute unveiled that the contraceptives could provide pregnancy prevention to roughly million women The Trump administration isn t just wasting money mentioned Jennifer Driver senior director of reproductive rights at the State Innovation Exchange it s wasting lives Because of high rates of maternal mortality she explained the undelivered aid could product in millions of unintended pregnancies thousands of preventable deaths The Belgian cabinet initially foiled the Trump administration s plans to destroy the contraceptives by intervening to block the incineration Now the U S is using another weapon to destroy the anatomical aid time The U S is using another weapon to destroy the medicinal aid time Tanzania which was supposed to receive the largest bulk of the contraceptive haul requires that these curative products have percent of their remaining shelf life when they enter customs revealed Marcel van Valen head of supply chain for the International Planned Parenthood Federation That threshold is definitely being reached for specific of the products by the end of December he mentioned and for most of products towards mid- Experts in reproductive vitality and supply chains recounted The Intercept that the Trump administration is attempting to run out the clock on the contraceptives shelf life wasting millions of taxpayer dollars and putting countless lives at exposure The U S leadership is waiting to run out the clock on this which is basically the same thing as lighting them on fire declared Beth Schlachter senior director of U S external relations for MSI Reproductive Choices one of the organizations offering to distribute the contraceptives Over the last several months the Trump administration has provided a litany of excuses for leaving the contraceptives in storage One explanation has been the cost Their claim is that incinerating the full stock would cost them approximately and they hold that against distributing the stocks to their intended destination reported van Valen International Planned Parenthood estimates distribution would cost between million and million Multiple reputable international nonprofit organizations including the United Nations Population Fund the Gates Foundation the International Planned Parenthood Foundation and the Children s Assets Fund Foundation have offered to purchase re-label and distribute the products themselves at no cost to the Trump administration While her organization MSI Reproductive Choices also placed a bid to distribute the contraceptives Schlachter revealed the work could have easily been done by the United Nations Population Fund also known as UNFPA UNFPA already had a supplies process that was able to move large volumes she reported and it could have easily absorbed these commodities because it was already doing that and is already still doing this for plenty of countries The obstacle here isn t money argued Schlacter it s ideology She pointed to an extremist right-wing ethos that views contraception as an extension of abortion The State Department did not respond to The Intercept s request for comment However in statements to other news outlets the administration has claimed that the contraceptives were abortifacients and that they couldn t find an eligible buyer because their internal policies prohibit them from providing funds to organizations that provide abortion care or offer information on abortion President Trump is committed to protecting the lives of unborn children all around the world a spokesperson for USAID explained The New York Times in September The administration will no longer supply abortifacient birth control under the guise of foreign aid The Intercept obtained the manifest for the contraceptives which includes the intended recipient countries as well as the products being warehoused and none of them are abortion drugs Additionally experts communicated The Intercept that multiple organizations that would not have violated that protocol stepped forward to offer to distribute the contraceptives There are various very religious conservative folks who are now the skeleton crew of the global healthcare association reported Schlacter who previously served as a senior framework adviser on sexual and reproductive robustness and rights at the State Department Various of them were blocking this contraception because they want to cut off all contraception because they believe anything other than a barrier method is really tantamount to abortion which is outrageous Access to contraceptives in sub-Saharan Africa is a matter of life or death explained Saifuddin Ahmed a professor in the Department of Population Family and Reproductive Fitness at the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Population Physical condition Despite making up roughly percent of the global population sub-Saharan Africa accounts for percent of maternal deaths globally according to the World Wellbeing Organization In family planning literature there s something called too early too late too a great number of Ahmed explained Basically it s absolutely saying that if a woman has a birth let s say before their pelvic organs develop that is too young in an adolescent period they re likely to die more If they have too multiple children spaced very narrowly we call it a short birth interval they will die at a higher rate The same goes for older women he reported Access to birth control can disrupt that deadly cycle Our research has shown family planning is presumably the majority of cost-effective tool for reducing maternal mortality stated Ahmed Not providing this type of commodity to the countries in Sub-Saharan Africa means that their maternal mortality rate will go much much higher Child death will also go higher According to UNFPA in contraceptive use averted more than million unintended pregnancies million unsafe abortions and nearly maternal deaths Read Our Complete Coverage The End of Roe Elizabeth Sully director of international research for The Guttmacher Institute mentioned while it s worth focusing on saving the contraceptives stored in Belgium this is just the beginning of the impact the Trump administration is having on family planning and maternal mortality efforts globally The United States family planning programs accounted for percent of all donor funding for family planning globally But earlier this year the Trump administration ended their financial endorsement for global family planning programs An estimate from the Guttmacher Institute discovered that the cuts to family planning grants will product in more maternal deaths just this year Mallah Tabot lead sexual and reproductive robustness architect of cooperation at the International Planned Parenthood Federation s Africa regional office described the Trump administration s move as pure wickedness Life-saving drugs are sitting somewhere withheld from those who need them the majority and rather than just doing the decent thing they would rather play the waiting challenge until the products are no longer viable revealed Tabot What can the executive say that would justify this level of wickedness The post Trump Would Rather Let Birth Control Expire Than Give It to Africans as Aid appeared first on The Intercept