International abortion industry takes massive hit as UK slashes funding by 85%

According to The Guardian, the international abortion industry just took a massive hit as the United Kingdom slashed funding:

The British government is slashing its funding to the UN population fund (UNFPA) in a move described as “devastating” for women and girls. The agency confirmed on Wednesday that the UK, its largest donor, is cutting funding for contraceptives and reproductive health supplies by 85% this year – from £154m to £23m – and cutting core funding from £20m to £8m.

UNFPA said the £130m that has been withheld would have helped prevent a quarter of a million child and maternal deaths, 14.6 million unintended pregnancies and 4.3 million unsafe abortions. It is a huge blow to UNFPA, which works in 150 countries. Britain is the first donor government to back away from its existing commitments. When the US government stopped funding the agency under Donald Trump, commitments already made were honoured.

The Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Office (FCDO) currently supports between 60 and 70% of UNFPA’s supplies budget. Last year, it pledged £425m until 2025, the largest financial partnership in the agency’s history…UNFPA supplies 70% of contraceptives in Zambia, where almost a third of girls will become pregnant before they reach 18.

The cuts will also have a knock-on effect on the work of NGOs provided with contraceptives by the agency, including the International Planned Parenthood Federation and MSI Reproductive Choices. In 2020, MSI received about $8.5m (£6m) of supplies from UNFPA. The cuts are part of Britain’s plans to reduce the overseas aid budget from 0.7% to 0.5% of gross national income.

An FCDO spokesperson said: “The seismic impact of the pandemic on the UK economy has forced us to take tough but necessary decisions, including temporarily reducing the overall amount we spend on aid.

“We will still spend more than £10bn this year to fight poverty, tackle climate change and improve global health. We are working with suppliers and partners on what this means for individual programmes.”

Despite the outcry, human rights activists such as Obianuju Ekeocha have stated that the relentless promotion of abortion and contraceptives in Africa constitutes neo-colonialism—and former Canadian diplomat David Mulroney told me recently in an interview for Convivium Magazine that he sees it the same way. For an African perspective on the UN population fund, listen to what Ekeocha has to say: