FY16 Omnibus: US Foreign Assistance Should Assist — Not Limit Births or Push Dangerous Pharmaceuticals

The State, Foreign Ops bill is one of 12 appropriations bills within the FY16 omnibus spending package. Lawmakers must agree by Dec. 12 or rely on another stop-gap bill to continue funding the government.

November 24, 2015

The Honorable Mitch McConnell             The Honorable Paul Ryan
Majority Leader                                              Speaker of the House
S-230, The Capitol                                        H-232, The Capitol
Washington, DC 20510                                Washington, DC 20515

The Honorable Kevin McCarthy                The Honorable John Cornyn
Majority Leader                                              Majority Whip
H-329, The Capitol                                        S-208, The Capitol
Washington DC 20515                                 Washington DC 20510

The Honorable Steve Scalise
Majority Whip
H-329, The Capitol
Washington, DC 20515

Re: International Family Planning in the FY2016 Omnibus

Dear Congressional Leaders,

The United States is the only donor country in the world to spend more on reproductive health than maternal and child health, according to a recent Lancet review of global funding for reproductive health and maternal and child health. It has done so consistently during the Obama administration.

Lancet reports the total spent in 2012 by the U.S. on reproductive health abroad was $2,780,500,000. Adjusting for the $1.6 billion from PEPFAR this still results in $1,180,500,000 spent on family planning and sexually transmitted infection prevention, which is nearly as much as the U.S. spent on Maternal and Child Health, ($1,353,100,000) in the same period. Generally speaking, programs for Maternal and Child Health are more expensive overall, as reflected in the expenditures of other donor countries and agencies which spend an exponentially larger portion of their aid to Maternal Newborn and Child Health.

The following questions are inevitable from these facts. Why is the U.S. the only country in the world with these priorities? Does the Obama administration think it is so important to prevent new births in poor countries that it cannot spend more on making pregnancy and childbirth safe for mothers and children? Will the legacy of the U.S. in foreign assistance be reducing fertility in poor countries, or making pregnancy and childbirth safe for women and their children? Will the U.S. Congress continue to contribute billions of dollars of aid to groups that provide and promote abortions?

Unfortunately, the Obama Administration has repeatedly proposed budgets that sustain or decrease existing appropriations for several key Global Health programs while seeking incremental growth for family planning and reproductive health. For example, the Administration’s 2015 proposed budget sought the following changes from the previous year’s budget: tuberculosis (-19%), pandemic preparedness (-31%), nutrition (-12%), maternal and child health (-1%), vulnerable children (-34%), HIV/AIDS (0%), Malaria (+1%), and family planning and reproductive health (+3%).

This significant increase to family planning programs has propagated the large scale-up of a controversial long acting injectable to poor women and girls in the developing world. This was made possible through the strategic and collaborative effort of sexual and reproductive rights groups including the Population and Reproductive Health department within USAID, demanding additional funding to satisfy the so-called “unmet need” for contraception. A notable reproductive health advocate recently remarked that population control programs are unfortunately back in vogue due to women’s health concerns falling behind that of fertility reduction concerns.

This expansive budget for overseas family planning and the rescinding of the Mexico City policy has aided global abortion groups in gaining a foothold in countries where the U.S. is providing FP assistance. Since 2009, at least $3.6 billion in grant money has been given to international family planning and an additional $224.3 million was given to the UN Population Fund (UNFPA) which funds groups that do abortions, as well as China’s agency that implements its coercive population program. Consider that since the Mexico City policy has been rescinded the two largest global abortion providers—International Planned Parenthood Federation and Marie Stopes International—as well as UNFPA are present in these countries at a rate of 94.7%, 55.3%, and 100.0% respectively.

As a matter of accountability to the American taxpayers, the United States government’s foreign aid priorities should correspond to the level and urgency of need in foreign countries. Family planning advocacy groups make the claim that 225 million women worldwide have an “unmet need” for family planning – often characterized as a lack of access to modern contraceptives. But that figure better reflects the demands of family planning organizations than the women they claim to represent.

Given that the methods for estimating family planning “need,” as well as the projected price tag for meeting it, are generated by family planning advocacy organizations who stand to benefit from increased spending in this area, some skepticism of their claims is in order.

According to the Guttmacher Institute’s own analysis of DHS surveys less than 2% of married women in the developing world report lack of access to modern methods of contraception as a reason for non-use in DHS surveys. This level of saturation in contraceptive use and availability has been present for over a decade, and family planning groups declaredly want more money to increase contraceptive use and to modify social customs and norms. Increased spending on family planning will not result in meeting these purported unmet needs, but will only enrich the pharmaceutical companies that produce contraceptives and the family planning groups that market them—and many of these groups would not receive a single cent from U.S. taxpayers under the Mexico City Policy because they promote and provide abortions.

The U.S. should seek to avoid directing the goodwill of the American people toward efforts that will likely be wasteful or, at worst, coercive toward women in foreign countries. To this end, the State and Foreign Operations funding bill (SFOP) passed in the House advances life-saving policies to protect unborn babies and their mothers. However, a hostile amendment passed in the Senate SFOPs subcommittee altered these protections.

We respectfully request that the FY2016 Omnibus retain the following provisions:

• Protect the Helms amendment
• Reduce and cap international Family Planning funding to $465M as approved in the House SFOPs bill and redirect the $150M to Maternal and Child Health
• Zero out all funding for UNFPA
• Restore the Mexico City Policy

Sincerely,

Austin Ruse
President

cc:

The Honorable Hal Rogers, Chairman of the House Committee on Appropriations
The Honorable Thad Cochran, Chairman of the Senate Committee on Appropriations
The Honorable Kay Granger, Chairman of the House Appropriations Subcommittee for State, Foreign Operations Subcommittee
The Honorable Lindsey Graham, Chairman of the Senate Appropriations Subcommittee for State, Foreign Operations Subcommittee