Trump Aid Cutts ends access to contraception for millions of women

The United States puts an end to its financial support for family planning programs in developing countries, which reduces nearly 50 million women from access to contraception.

This change in politics has drawn little attention to the middle of the wholesale dismantling of American foreign aid, but it should have enormous implications, including more maternal deaths and a global increase in poverty. He derailed an effort that had brought prolonged action contraceptives to women in some of the poorest and most isolated parts in the world in recent years.

The United States has provided around 40% of financial governments contributed to family planning programs in 31 developing countries, some $ 600 million in 2023 last year for which data is available, according to KFF, a health research organization.

US funding has provided contraceptive devices and medical services to deliver them to more than 47 million women and couples, which should have avoided 17.1 million involuntary pregnancies and 5.2 million dangerous abortions, according to an analysis of the Guttmacher Institute, a research organization on sexual health. Without this annual contribution, 34,000 women could die of avoidable maternal deaths each year, concluded the calculation of Guttmacher.

“The extent of the impact is breathtaking,” said Marie Ba, who heads the coordination team for the Ouagadougou partnership, an initiative aimed at accelerating investment and access to family planning in nine West African countries.

The funding was terminated as part of the Trump Administration of the American Agency for International Development. The State Department, in which the skeletal remains of the USAID were absorbed on Friday, did not respond to a request for comments on the decision to stop funding family planning. Secretary of State Marco Rubio described dismissal assistance projects as a waste and not aligned with American strategic interest.