Pro-Lifers Ask Congress to Block Abortion/Transgenderism in HIV/AIDS Bill

By | May 4, 2023

WASHINGTON, D.C., May 5 (C-Fam) Pro-life groups have asked U. S. Senate and House leaders to ensure that U.S. foreign assistance for HIV/AIDS does not include abortion and transgenderism.

In a letter sent on Monday this week, pro-life leaders warned Congress of the risk that the U.S. is subsidizing the global abortion industry. Aside from promoting and performing abortions, the abortion industry has become the principal provider of gender transition services and the main vehicle for transgender ideology internationally.

“We are concerned that grants from the President’s Emergency Plan for AIDS Relief (PEPFAR) are used by nongovernmental organizations that promote abortions and push a radical gender ideology abroad. We urge you to ensure that any reauthorization of PEPFAR ensures that taxpayer money is not used for such purposes,” the pro-life groups said.

Congress is now considering re-authorization of the President’s Emergency Plan for AIDs Relief (PEPFAR) to include nearly $30 billion over the next five years. With over $110 billion spent since the program started in 2003 under President George W. Bush, PEPFAR is the largest international health program that the U.S. government has ever funded.

The pro-life letter points out how many major PEPFAR grant recipients, including the International Planned Parenthood Federation, “publicly support abortion as a method of family planning” and recently complained about the U.S. Supreme Court’s reversal of Roe v. Wade as well as U.S. State laws against transgender bathroom and sports policies.

The letter also points out that the Biden administration has directed all federal agencies “to promote abortion and gender ideology abroad.”

The pro-life groups essentially are asking Congress to codify the Mexico City Policy as part of the PEPFAR authorization. Mexico City Policy was instituted under President Ronald Reagan and forbids American money from supporting or performing abortions overseas. The Trump administration expanded Mexico City Policy, now referred to as Protecting Life in Global Health Assistance, to all U.S. health aid including PEPFAR. The policy was revoked in the first week of the Biden administration.

For the last ten years, PEPFAR has been mostly focused on providing anti-retroviral drugs in poor countries, which accounts for its exorbitant expense. The drugs have made HIV/AIDS a manageable illness in industrialized countries, but their costliness combined with lack of health infrastructure in poor countries continues to make HIV/AIDS a deadly disease in poor countries in Africa and East Asia.

A report of the Heritage Foundation by Tim Meisburger released this week in conjunction with the pro-life letter casts doubt on the overall effectiveness of PEPFAR. It argues that the program is bloated and mismanaged, and it questions the effectiveness of funding anti-retroviral drugs instead of more funding for health infrastructure to combat other deadly diseases that aren’t related to risky sexual behavior and that claim many more lives in poor countries.

The Heritage report also sheds light on how Democrats are making PEPFAR into the vehicle of “social priorities like abortion and promotion of LGBTI issues.”

International HIV/AIDS relief programs have long been caught in the crosshairs of the culture wars. Already thirty years ago, international agencies, including UN agencies and the USAID argued that promoting legalization and social acceptance for homosexuality, prostitution, promiscuity, and drug use were essential to fighting against HIV/AIDS. Programs funded by PEPFAR have also promoted this approach.

In the past, republicans countered these efforts with congressional and presidential mandates requiring the teaching of sexual abstinence and fidelity as the best way to combat HIV/AIDS and barring organizations from promoting legalized prostitution. The Supreme Court and Democrats have successfully revoked these mandates.

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