PRESS RELEASE
8 November 2024: Donald Trump has been announced the winner of the U.S. election, threatening reproductive health and rights around the world. A return to Trump’s policies - and the potential implementation of Project 2025 - will cause millions of people to lose access to contraception, abortion, and other critical healthcare services, both in the US and around the world.
Trump will reinstate the Global Gag Rule (GGR) upon coming to office in January next year. The GGR causes significant and specific harm to IPPF, and will amount to an approximate loss of US$60 million in USAID funding.
Regardless of who is in office, the United States does not fund abortions abroad, as stipulated by the Helms Amendment, which has been in effect for more than 50 years. But the GGR takes those restrictions much further: The last version that was in place during the Trump administration's first term from 2017 - 2021 forbid non-US organisations that take U.S. global health funding from any abortion-related activities - regardless of the source of funds they use to provide those services.
Abortion service delivery and advocacy are core components of our mandate, and we consider them non-negotiable human rights. IPPF has never, and will never, sign the GGR.
Thirteen of our MAs would lose USAID funds, with six MAs currently managing multi-million dollar funding, namely Cote d'Ivoire, Cameroon, Ethiopia, Malawi, Mauritania and Togo.
In Malawi, the Family Planning Association of Malawi (FPAM) is the main family planning and adolescent health partner for two major USAID integrated health projects. Their work has improved equity in access to contraceptive services. In Ethiopia, the Family Guidance Association of Ethiopia (FGAE) is the lead local FP partner on USAID’s youth, nutrition, and health communication projects.
IPPF is also leading ExpandPF, a large multi-country USAID project in Francophone West Africa, which started in 2023 and is planned to continue until 2028. It is expected to reach nearly 1.2 million contraceptive users.
Abruptly cutting this work short will have tragic consequences for the local population, clinics, outreach, and community services and programs.
Under Project 2025, Trump’s policy advisors have proposed an extreme new expansion of the GGR to include all foreign assistance to US and non-US organisations, including humanitarian funding.
Marie-Evelyne Petrus-Barry, Regional Director for the Africa Regional Office of IPPF:
“Global NGOs, reproductive health advocates, and women’s rights groups like our own were closely watching the US election, hoping for a more progressive stance for comprehensive sexual and reproductive healthcare. The wider impacts of the GGR on our movement and sexual and reproductive health and rights access and progress harms everyone in the ecosystem.”
Dr Alvaro Bermejo, Director-General, International Planned Parenthood Federation:
“We are now facing a future where the alt-right are further emboldened, and without urgent opposition by civil society to the current course of action, the Trump-Vance Administration will expand the pathway already prepared. The threat to the sexual and reproductive justice agenda now demands a deliberate, and unified, effort from IPPF and our global movement. We remain committed to a future where your choices, your identity, and your freedoms are protected.”
For media inquiries, or to arrange an interview with our spokespeople, contact IPPF’s press office at: media@ippf.org
About the International Planned Parenthood Federation (IPPF)
IPPF is a global healthcare provider and a leading advocate of sexual and reproductive health and rights (SRHR) for all. Led by a courageous and determined group of women, IPPF was founded in 1952 at the Third International Planned Parenthood Conference. Today, we are a movement of 150 Member Associations and Collaborative Partners with a presence in over 146 countries. Our work is wide-ranging, including comprehensive sex education, provision of contraceptives, safe abortion, and maternal care and responding to humanitarian crises. We pride ourselves on being local through our members and global through our network. At the heart of our mission is the provision of – and advocacy in support of – integrated healthcare to anyone who needs it regardless of race, gender, sex, income, and crucially no matter how remote.
Photo credits: Rutgers/Esther Ruth Mbabazi/Uganda - IPPF/Moctar MENTA - IPPF/Hannah Maule-ffinch/Ukraine - IPPF/Hannah Maule-ffinch/Cook Islands - Wara Vargas - IPPF/Hannah Maule-ffinch - IPPF/Hannah Maule-ffinch/Maldives
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Americas & the Caribbean
Related Member Association
Planned Parenthood Federation of America
We are now facing a future where the alt-right are further emboldened, and without urgent opposition by civil society to the current course of action, the Trump-Vance Administration will expand the pathway already prepared.
