Trump Wants to Make African Countries Share Abortion Data to Get AIDS Funding

The Trump administration plans to condition global physical condition assistance on foreign countries sharing critical amounts of robustness details with the United States including on abortion according to a template for an aid agreement obtained by The Intercept The template agreement which references the President s Exigency Plan for AIDS Relief or PEPFAR but also applies funding to fight malaria tuberculosis and other pathogens would require countries that receive global healthcare assistance to share a broad range of strength care and pathogen figures for the next years The model document would also require foreign governments to provide the United States with any statistics access or information needed to monitor compliance with the Helms Amendment which prevents U S federal funds from being used to provide abortion care abroad This stipulation would give the United States broad authority to collect input on abortion care and guidelines for decades to come The agreement is just another example of the Trump Administration s playbook for using its power and influence to further its anti-choice agenda and undermine critical national population healthcare responses wrote Melissa Cockroft global lead on abortion for the International Planned Parenthood Federation in a comment to The Intercept Related Trump Would Rather Let Birth Control Expire Than Give It to Africans as Aid The document was developed in line with the State Department s new America First Global Robustness Strategy which seeks to broadly eliminate multilateral cooperation on international wellness care initiatives like the Pathogen Access and Benefit Sharing system being negotiated by the World Healthcare Organization in favor of direct agreements between the United States and other countries After the executive shutdown brought negotiations to a screeching halt the department has renewed its efforts to reach bilateral global soundness agreements with dozens of countries primarily in Africa identified in its America First Global Vitality Strategy The State Department is supposed to complete the deals by the end of the year Global soundness experts who spoke to The Intercept cautioned that these agreements appear to be highly unbalanced giving the Trump administration sweeping authority to extract information on a number of issues including on abortion raising key concerns about misuse at a time when the Trump administration is looking to limit access to abortion globally The State Department did not respond to a request for comment Collecting figures itself isn t an distinctive function of a global robustness initiative declared Mitchell Warren the executive director of AVAC a nonprofit organization focused on HIV prevention PEPFAR in particular has inevitably been very records rich lots of content collected and analyzed but in a very collaborative nature between governments civil society and the United States establishment and there s perpetually been great clarity on why we re collecting this information he stated However Warren also noted that the section around any input access necessary to monitor compliance with the anti-abortion Helms Amendment which gives broad discretion to the United States to request access to abortion-related information for decades goes far beyond that scope The part about Helms and requiring compliance information on that for years along with everything else does raise particular concerns about what the administration is doing with this announced Elisha Dunn-Georgiou president and CEO of Global Healthcare Council Is there a larger play at foot to use records to monitor countries regulatory moves around liberalizing restrictions on abortion While it s unclear exactly how the Trump administration plans to use this material Cockroft noted the model agreement is concerning against the larger backdrop of its anti-abortion agenda In January President Donald Trump reinstated the global gag rule a program that prevents foreign organizations that receive global healthcare assistance from providing information referrals or services related to abortion care or advocating for abortion access We know the Trump administration is seeking at all costs to restrict abortion access globally reported Cockroft Requests from the Trump administration in the MoU for any records for compliance monitoring are very concerning as it is unclear how exactly the content will be used and to what ends A multitude of countries are feeling so squeezed for funding that they will take the deal Dunn-Georgiou reported The Intercept that the administration is also in the process of expanding the rule potentially to encompass all non-military foreign assistance U S -based nonprofits and foreign governments massively expanding its scope and impact While there s no general information on how exactly these final agreements will differ from the template produced by the Trump administration majority recipient countries particularly in Africa don t have much negotiating power to change the terms to their benefit People are getting sick Medicine is hard to find I ve even heard of condom shortages in several countries because the prevention funding for HIV has been stalled announced Dunn-Georgiou Various countries are feeling so squeezed for funding that they will take the deal The post Trump Wants to Make African Countries Share Abortion Input to Get AIDS Funding appeared first on The Intercept