Biden Asks Congress to Bypass Federal Restrictions on Abortion Funding Overseas

By | June 17, 2021

WASHINGTON DC, June 18 (C-Fam) The White House’s 2022 budget proposal attempts to bypass politically popular federal restrictions on abortion funding abroad.

President Biden’s first budget, proposed this month, would allow federal agencies to fund abortion under the rubric of “women’s empowerment and gender equality.” This could create a new funding stream to which abortion-related restrictions are not applicable.

Despite leaving in place language from established federal restrictions on abortion funding abroad, mainly from the Helms and Siljander amendments, the proposal states that funds for women’s empowerment and gender equality “may be made available notwithstanding any other provision of law.”

The addition of “notwithstanding” allows for the waiver of any provision of Federal law for activities to promote gender equality overseas. This sweeping “notwithstanding” authority for funding “to promote gender equality” could bypass the Helms Amendment and Siljander amendments, to potentially allow taxpayer funding for abortion or abortion lobbying overseas.

“Notwithstanding” language has long been included in U.S. foreign assistance bills in order to provide humanitarian and development assistance in countries where it would otherwise be prohibited due to human rights violations or other restrictions. Examples include child survival activities and disease programs including activities relating to HIV/AIDS.

“Women’s empowerment and gender equality” includes raising the status of women, increasing their economic participation and opportunity for leadership, increasing their role in peace and security, and “protecting the rights of women and girls worldwide.” These areas are broad enough to raise concerns that funding would be directed to perform and promote abortion, as well as coerce health providers to perform or refer women for abortions.

The broad “notwithstanding” language may cover anything classified as promoting “gender equality” in the Biden budget, including funding allocated to global health, typically around $9B annually.

The gender equality item in the budget also expressly incorporates $200M in dedicated funds for international women’s economic advancement under the Women’s Global Development and Prosperity Initiative (W-GDP) created by Ivanka Trump. In the president’s budget, the W-GDP initiative is re-named the Gender Equity and Equality Action Fund and falls under the “notwithstanding” language.

Pro-abortion advocates and lawmakers were highly critical of W-GDP for its narrow focus on economic advancement, steering clear of abortion politics. The proposed name change may signal a broadened focus for the funding to include health, including abortion, under the Biden administration.

Due to the rescinding of Trump’s expanded Mexico City Policy, Biden’s budget provides additional avenues for global abortion groups to obtain funding through increased bilateral and multilateral assistance — now at $640M.

The budget provides a 70% increase — $56M to the United Nations Population Fund (UNFPA). Previous Democratic presidents that funded UNFPA retained funding conditions that the agency could not fund abortions or be used for country programs in China. The Biden budget removes these restrictions.

In addition to attempting to bypass the Helms and Siljander amendments through “notwithstanding” language, the White House has signaled its intent to reinterpret Helms to allow for abortion in some circumstances. Should Helms be reinterpreted, family planning funding could be permitted for the purchase of abortion performing equipment like manual vacuum aspirators and medical abortion pills which Helms has long prohibited.

Whether Democrats in Congress maintain abortion related restrictions like Helms or “notwithstanding” language for gender equality in the 2022 State and Foreign Operations funding bill will be revealed when the draft bill is released which is expected this month.

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