President Donald Trump is building on his efforts to protect unborn children with the announcement this week that the State Department is expanding foreign policy actions to prevent American taxpayers from paying for abortions around the globe.
After a conference call with reporters, a senior administration official told Breitbart News that the implementation of the Protecting Life in Global Health Assistance policy (PLGHA) is going to save countless lives around the world by preventing the funding of organizations that promote or provide abortions, including International Planned Parenthood. This is according to reports released after the call.
“The purpose of the policy is to prevent American taxpayers from subsidizing abortion through global health assistance provided for populations in need,” the executive summary of the PLGHA report said:
As President Trump said in his address to the United Nations General Assembly in September of 2019, “Americans will also never tire of defending innocent life […and] we in America believe that every child — born and unborn — is a sacred gift from God.” Notably, two of the largest and most-vocal organizations that have attempted to assert a global right to abortion on demand, International Planned Parenthood Federation and Marie Stopes International, declined to agree to PLGHA and therefore forfeited their eligibility for global health assistance funding from the U.S. Government.
Breitbart News asked about how much money these two abortion giants are forfeiting and a senior administration official said the combined loss is more than $140 million in annual funding.
“President Trump is the most pro-life president in history, and he backs up his pro-life commitments with real action,” a senior administration told Breitbart News. “We’re proud that we continue to support women and girls abroad and conduct and fund rigorous, cutting-edge scientific research at home while standing firm for the dignity of unborn life.”
Officials on the call also touted Trump’s dedication to “defending unborn life around the world” and that the due diligence done in researching this issue of putting pro-life policies into foreign policy shows that “pro-life policies do not stand in the way of health care for women.”
Officials on the White House call with reporters announced the release of two reports — one from the National Institutes of Health Report on the Human Fetal Tissue Research Ethics Advisory Board- FY2020 and the Review of the Implementation the Protecting Life in Global Health Assistance Policy as mentioned earlier.
A senior administration official noted that the results of the ethics advisory board are in stark contrast to what President Bill Clinton did shortly after his election in 1993 on the 20th anniversary of the U.S. Supreme Court decision that made abortion on demand the law of the land.
The Los Angeles Times reported on the move:
With a stroke of a pen, President Clinton marked the 20th anniversary of Roe vs. Wade on Friday by dismantling a series of Ronald Reagan and George Bush Administration abortion restrictions, only hours after tens of thousands of anti-abortion demonstrators rallied across the street from the White House.
“Our vision should be of an America where abortion is safe and legal but rare,” Clinton said, as, on his third day in office, he fulfilled a campaign promise to abortion rights supporters and medical research organizations.
Clinton’s executive order included:
• Ended a five-year ban on fetal tissue research, which scientists believe holds the possibility of benefiting patients with Parkinson’s disease, Alzheimer’s disease, diabetes, Huntington’s disease, spinal cord injuries and other conditions.
• Overturned the so-called gag rule that restricted abortion counseling at 4,000 federally funded family planning clinics nationwide.
• Revoked prohibitions on the importation of RU486–known as the French “abortion pill”–for personal use, if the Food and Drug Administration determines that there is no justification for the prohibitions.
• Allowed abortions at U.S. military hospitals overseas, if they are paid for privately.
• Reversed a 1984 order which prevented the United States from providing foreign aid to overseas organizations that perform or promote abortion.
In contrast, the fetal tissue research conducted by the Trump administration shows that it is unnecessary to advance the prevention and curing diseases:
The NIH Human Fetal Tissue Research Ethics Advisory Board – FY2020 (Board) was established on February 20, 2020, by the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) to advise, consult with, and make recommendations to, the Secretary of HHS (Secretary) regarding the ethics of research involving human fetal tissue (HFT) proposed in NIH grant and cooperative agreement applications and research and development (R&D) contract proposals, 1 described below and as set forth in the NIH Guide Notice NOT-OD-19-128.2
The majority of the board concluded that it should not use fetal tissue obtained through abortions for research.
The minority did express concerns about the board’s final report:
Two members of the Board asked that a dissenting opinion be included for the record, as follows: “This board was clearly constituted …so as to include a large majority of members who are on the public record as being opposed to human fetal tissue research of any type. This was clearly an attempt to block funding of as many contracts and grants as possible, even those responding to the NIH solicitation for proposals responsive to the notice: “Characterizing and Improving Humanized Immune System Mouse Models (IMM-HIS)”. This solicitation required comparison of current humanized mice made with human fetal tissue to proposed models that do not use human fetal tissue. The outcome of the Board’s deliberations are thus clearcut and will paradoxically fail to reduce the use of human fetal tissue in the development of humanized mice needed for therapy development including for COVID19.”
Senior administration officials on the call said they were “thrilled” to share the latest efforts to put pro-life policies in place in U.S. foreign policy.
