Yesterday, President Donald Trump signed an executive order to defund the International Planned Parenthood abortion business. The President also took steps to defund UNFPA, a United Nations agency which promotes abortions worldwide.
When Trump signed the order to restore the Mexico City Policy, pro-life Advocates were delighted that the International Planned Parenthood abortion corporation would no longer receive taxpayer dollars to promote or perform abortions in other nations.
But further analysis of Trump’s executive order confirms that the President also defunded the pro-abortion United Nations agency.
President Trump has updated the Mexico City Policy by directing the Secretary of State to implement a plan that expands the policy across all global health assistance funding. This means that taxpayer dollars will not be supporting organizations that promote or participate in the management of a coercive abortion program — like China’s two-child policy that includes forced abortions.
The United Nations Population Fund (UNFPA), for example, is one such organization, with its long history of supporting China’s population control regime.
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According to information from he Family Research Council, both Presidents Ronald Reagan and George H.W. Bush cut off funding to the UNFPA during their administrations. In 1993, President Bill Clinton resumed funding for UNFPA, but for fiscal year 1999 signed a foreign aid appropriations bill that zeroed out funding for UNFPA. Funding to UNFPA was again completely cut off under President George W. Bush.
In 2008, then-Secretary of State Colin Powell explained: “UNFPA’s support of, and involvement in, China’s population-planning activities allows the Chinese government to implement more effectively its program of coercive abortion. Therefore, it is not permissible to continue funding UNFPA at this time.”
President Obama resumed U.S. taxpayer funding of UNFPA in 2009. From 2009 to 2016, over $300 million was appropriated for UNFPA.
One pro-life leader applauded President Trump for defunding the UNFPA.
“Not only has President Trump reinstated the Mexico City Policy, he’s modernized it by applying it to all foreign health assistance programs,” said SBA List President Marjorie Dannenfelser. “For nearly a decade under President Obama, Americans have funded UNFPA, which has a long history of involvement in China’s brutal birth limitation policy – enforcement of which routinely includes the atrocity of forced abortions. Thanks to President Trump, the Secretary of State is directed to ensure Americans are no longer complicit in violating the dignity of women and children overseas. No longer will abortion be a top U.S. export.”
Below is the text of the full executive order:
