Will Trump gut UN family planning funds ... again?

The United Nations Population Fund is facing the potential specter of financial mayhem: And its name is Donald J. Trump. If the former United States president is elected for a second term on Tuesday, the White House is all but certain to cut U.S. funding to the U.N. agency, known as UNFPA, according to experts on women’s health. The U.N. fund, which provides reproductive health services and education to women and girls in more than 150 countries, has grown accustomed to the Republican budget axe. Every Republican president since Ronald Reagan has halted its funding, while every Democratic president has restored it. Only this time, UNFPA must contend with the loss of well over $160 million in U.S. funding, more than double the $70 million the Trump administration cut in his first term as president. President Joe Biden’s administration has contributed more to UNFPA than any other U.S. administration. In 2023, the U.S. provided over $160 million to UNFPA, accounting for some 11% percent of UNFPA’s $1.45 billion. That included more than $130 million for humanitarian programs, about 29% of the agency’s $443 million for humanitarian operations, according to UNFPA figures. The U.S. allocation was more than $185 million in 2022 and is likely to be even greater in 2024. No wiggle room The population fund is not the only U.N. institution that risks having its aid cut. During the Trump administration, the White House routinely introduced budgets with draconian cuts on a wide swath of U.N. agencies, from the U.N. Development Programme to UNICEF. But Democrats and Republicans in Congress routinely blocked those cuts, underscoring bipartisan support for foreign aid. It remains unclear which party will control the Senate and the House in 2025, but Trump has exercised increasing influence over the Republican party since he left office. Reproductive rights organizations have expressed particular alarm over a recommendation by the Heritage Foundation, that the White House block funding to UNFPA. The so-called Project 2025 proposal would also expand the global gag rule by barring “all foreign assistance, including humanitarian aid” to organizations that perform or promote abortions. Trump has dissociated himself from Project 2025, but the project’s recommendations reflect the priorities of former members of the Trump administration. “There’s no wiggle room,” said Sarah Shaw, global head of advocacy for MSI Reproductive Choices, which provides access to contraception and postabortion medical services to women and girls in 36 countries. “The global gag rule has always had a humanitarian carve out, where humanitarian funds will be exempt. But in Project 2025 they’re proposing to remove that.” In its early days, UNFPA enjoyed broad bipartisan support. In 1969, the U.S. was a founding member of the U.N. Fund for Population Activities — now UNFPA — which enjoyed the backing of the then-Republican president Richard Nixon. But President Ronald Reagan emerged as a powerful critic of the U.N. agency, cutting off U.S. assistance to the population fund in 1985, citing its work in China, a country that had imposed a policy prohibiting Chinese families from conceiving more than one child. Reagan also implemented the Mexico City policy, known informally as the global gag rule, requiring foreign nongovernmental organizations, or NGOs, to certify they wouldn’t “perform or actively promote abortion as a method of family planning.” Trump expanded the scope of the global gag rule, conditioning all U.S. global health assistance. But Biden rescinded the policy weeks after he came into office. The gag rule, which would likely be reinstated by a Trump administration, could have a devastating impact on agencies that provide reproductive health services. The nonprofit MSI Reproductive Choices has received awards of nearly $21 million from USAID to provide sexual and reproductive health services to as many as 2.6 million women worldwide. It includes $9 million in funding for a family planning program in Zimbabwe. The program — which receives about half its funding from the U.S. — would need to be dramatically scaled back, according to Shaw. Guilt by association The Kemp-Kasten amendment — which was passed into law in 1985 — provided the legal justification for defunding UNFPA. It barred U.S. funds from being granted to “any organization or program which, as determined by the president of the United States, supports or participates in the management of a program of coercive abortion or involuntary sterilization.” The language of the law is sweeping enough to restrict funding to U.S. and foreign NGOs and other multilateral organizations. But it has only been applied to UNFPA, effectively blocking U.S. funding for 19 of the past 37 years. Kemp-Kasten, named after its Republican cosponsors, Sen. Bob Kasten and Rep. Jack Kemp, was passed in response to concerns about China’s coercive population control policies. Numerous reviews of UNFPA activities in China, including a 2002 State Department assessment, determined that the population fund did not support coercive programs in China. “Evaluations by the U.S. government and others have found no evidence that UNFPA directly engages in coercive abortions or involuntary sterilization in China,” according to a detailed explainer by the Kaiser Family Foundation, or KFF, a nonprofit that conducts research and polling on health issues. In 2017, the Trump administration acknowledged that “there is no evidence that UNFPA directly engages in coercive abortions or involuntary sterilizations in China,” but concluded that its partnership with the Family Planning Commission of China nevertheless implicated them under Kemp-Kasten. “It was guilt by association,” Craig Lasher, a senior fellow at Population Action International, told Devex. UNFPA has denied it supported abortions or coercive sterilization programs, saying the Trump administration’s claims to the contrary were “erroneous.” “UNFPA does not perform, promote or fund abortion, and we accord the highest priority to universal access to voluntary family planning, which helps prevent abortions from occurring,” the agency stated in 2019. “UNFPA opposes coercive practices, such as forced sterilization and coerced abortions, and has spoken out against instances of such human rights abuses. UNFPA does not promote changes to the legal status of abortion.” While the Trump campaign hasn’t said anything about its plans for UNFPA, “it’s a virtual certainty, like death and taxes, they are going to cut off UNFPA as soon as they are able to work it through the process,” Lasher said. “They’re not really replaceable,” added Lasher, noting that no other organizations have the same level of reach, particularly in conflict zones. There are no ready donors in the wings waiting to make up for U.S. funding. “That’s pretty hard for other donors, particularly in the current climate to make it up if the U.S. pulls out,” he added.