Trump administration to destroy nearly $10m of contraceptives for women overseas
A state department spokesperson confirmed that the decision had been made – a move that will cost US taxpayers $167,000. The contraceptives are primarily long-acting, such as IUDs and birth control implants, and were almost certainly intended for women in Africa, according to two senior congressional aides, one of whom visited a warehouse in Belgium that housed the contraceptives. It is not clear to the aides whether the destruction has already been carried out, but said they had been told that it was set to occur by the end of July.
'It is unacceptable that the State Department would move forward with the destruction of more than $9m in taxpayer-funded family planning commodities purchased to support women in crisis settings, including war zones and refugee camps,' Jeanne Shaheen, a Democratic senator from New Hampshire, said in a statement. Shaheen and Brian Schatz, a Democratic senator from Hawaii, have introduced legislation to stop the destruction.
'This is a waste of US taxpayer dollars and an abdication of US global leadership in preventing unintended pregnancies, unsafe abortions and maternal deaths,' added Shaheen, who in June sent a letter to the secretary of state, Marco Rubio, about the matter.
Related: 'Profound alarm': US veterans agency roiled by fight over anti-discrimination provisions
The department decided to destroy the contraceptives because it could not sell them to any 'eligible buyers', in part because of US laws and rules that prohibit sending US aid to organizations that provide abortion services, counsel people about the procedure or advocate for the right to it overseas, according to the state department spokesperson.
Most of the contraceptives have less than 70% of their shelf life left before they expire, the spokesperson said, and rebranding and selling the contraceptives could cost several million dollars. However, the aide who visited the warehouse said that the earliest expiration date they saw on the contraceptives was 2027, and that two-thirds of the contraceptives did not have any USAID labels that would need to be rebranded.
The eradication of the contraceptives is part of the Trump administration's months-long demolition of the Agency for International Development (USAID), the largest funding agency for humanitarian and development aid in the world. After the unofficial 'department of government efficiency' (Doge) erased 83% of USAID's programs, Rubio announced in June that USAID's entire international workforce would be abolished and its foreign assistance programs would be moved to the state department. The agency will be replaced by an organization called America First.
In total, the funding cuts to USAID could lead to more than 14m additional deaths by 2030, according to a recent study published in the journal the Lancet. A third of those deaths could be children.
'If you have an unintended pregnancy and you end up having to seek unsafe abortion, it's quite likely that you will die,' said Sarah Shaw, the associate director of advocacy at MSI Reproductive Choices, a global family planning organization that works in nearly 40 countries. 'If you're not given the means to space or limit your births, you're putting your life at risk or your child's life at risk.'
The fact that the contraceptives are going to be burned when there's so much need – it's just egregious
Sarah Shaw, MSI Reproductive Choices
MSI tried to purchase the contraceptives from the US government, Shaw said. But the government would only accept full price – which Shaw said the agency could not afford, given that MSI would also have to shoulder the expense of transportingthe contraceptives and the fact that they are inching closer to their expiration date, which could affect MSI's ability to distribute them.
The state department spokesperson did not specifically respond to a request for comment on Shaw's allegation, but MSI does provide abortions as part of its global work, which may have led the department to rule it out as an 'eligible buyer'.
In an internal survey, MSI programs in 10 countries reported that, within the next month, they expect to be out of stock or be on the brink of being out of stock of at least one contraceptive method. The countries include Burkina Faso, the Democratic Republic of Congo, Mali, Ethiopia, Nigeria, Tanzania, Timor-Leste, Senegal, Kenya and Sierra Leone.
Shaw expects the stock to be incinerated. 'The fact that the contraceptives are going to be burned when there's so much need – it's just egregious,' she said. 'It's disgusting.' The Department of State spokesperson did not respond to a request for information on the planned method of destruction.
The destruction of the contraceptives is, to Shaw, emblematic of the overall destruction of a system that once provided worldwide help to women and families. USAID funding is threaded through so much of the global supply chain of family planning aid that, without its money, the chain has come apart. In Mali, Shaw said, USAID helped pay for the gas used by the vehicles that transport contraceptives from a warehouse. Without the gas money, the vehicles were stuck – and so were the contraceptives.
Related: New York county clerk rejects Texas's effort to fine doctor in abortion pill case
'I've worked in this sector for over 20 years and I've never seen anything on this scale,' Shaw said. 'The speed at which they've managed to dismantle excellent work and really great progress – I mean, it's just vanished in weeks.'
Other kinds of assistance are also reportedly being wasted. This week, the Atlantic reported that almost 500 metric tons of emergency food were expiring and would be incinerated, rather than being used to feed about 1.5 million children in Afghanistan and Pakistan. Meanwhile, almost 800,000 Mpox vaccines that were supposed to be sent to Africa are now unusable because they are too close to their expiration date, according to Politico.
The cuts to foreign aid are slated to deepen. Early on Friday morning, Congress passed a bill to claw back roughly $8bn that had been earmarked for foreign assistance.
'It's not just about an empty shelf,' Shaw said. 'It's about unfulfilled potential. It's about a girl having to drop out of school. It's about someone having to seek an unsafe abortion and risking their lives. That's what it's really about.'
Hashtags
Try Our AI Features
Explore what Daily8 AI can do for you:
Comments
No comments yet...
Related Articles
Los Angeles Times
20 minutes ago
- Los Angeles Times
Zelensky rejects Trump talk of ceding Ukrainian territory, says Kyiv must be part of any talks
KYIV, Ukraine — Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky on Saturday dismissed the planned summit between President Trump and Russian President Vladimir Putin, warning that any peace deal excluding Kyiv would lead to 'dead solutions.' The Trump-Putin meeting, scheduled for Friday in Alaska, has been cast as a potential breakthrough in the nearly 3½-year war. Trump had previously agreed to meet with Putin even if the Russian leader would not meet with Zelensky, stoking fears for Ukraine and many allies that it could be sidelined in efforts to stop Europe's biggest conflict since World War II. In a statement posted to Telegram, Zelensky said Ukraine's territorial integrity, enshrined in its constitution, must be nonnegotiable, and he emphasized that lasting peace must include Ukraine's voice at the table. In response to Trump's comments to reporters Friday that any agreement would probably involve 'some swapping of territories,' Zelensky said that Ukraine 'will not give Russia any awards for what it has done' and that 'Ukrainians will not give their land to the occupier.' Touching on Ukrainian anxieties that a direct meeting between Putin and Trump could marginalize Ukraine and European interests, Zelensky said: 'Any decisions that are without Ukraine are at the same time decisions against peace. They will not bring anything. These are dead decisions. They will never work.' Ukrainian officials had previously told the Associated Press privately that Kyiv would be amenable to a peace deal that would de facto recognize Ukraine's inability to regain lost territories militarily. Trump announced Friday his planned meeting with Putin in Alaska. 'It seems entirely logical for our delegation to fly across the Bering Strait simply, and for such an important and anticipated summit of the leaders of the two countries to be held in Alaska,' Putin's foreign affairs advisor, Yuri Ushakov, said Saturday in a statement posted to the Kremlin's news channel. The summit could prove pivotal in a war that began when Russia invaded its western neighbor in February 2022 and has led to tens of thousands of deaths, although it's far from certain it will stop the fighting since Moscow and Kyiv remain far apart on their conditions for peace. In his comments to reporters at the White House on Friday, before his post confirming the date and place, Trump gave no further details on the 'swapping of territories.' Analysts, including some close to the Kremlin, have suggested that Russia could offer to give up territory it controls outside the five regions it claims to have annexed — Crimea and the four regions seized since Moscow's invasion. Trump said his meeting with Putin would come before any sit-down discussion involving Zelensky. His announcement that he planned to host one of America's adversaries on U.S. soil broke with expectations that they'd meet in a third country. The gesture appears to give Putin validation after the U.S. and its allies had long sought to make him a pariah over his war against Ukraine. Nigel Gould-Davies, a senior fellow for Russia and Eurasia at the International Institute for Strategic Studies, told the Associated Press that the 'symbology' of holding the summit in Alaska was clear, and that the location 'naturally favors Russia.' 'It's easy to imagine Putin making the point. … We once had this territory and we gave it to you, therefore Ukraine had this territory and now should give it to us,' he said, referring to the 1867 transaction known as the Alaska Purchase when Russia sold Alaska to the United States for $7.2 million. On the streets of Kyiv, reactions to the idea of Ukraine ceding territory to Russia ranged from skepticism to quiet resignation. 'It may not be capitulation, but it would be a loss,' said Ihor Usatenko, a 67-year-old pensioner, who said he would consider ceding territory 'on condition for compensation and, possibly, some reparations.' Anastasia Yemelianova, 31, said she was torn: 'Honestly, I have two answers to that question. The first is as a person who loves her country. I don't want to compromise within myself,' she told the AP. 'But seeing all these deaths and knowing that my mother is now living in Nikopol under shelling and my father is fighting, I want all this to end as soon as possible.' Others, like Svitlana Dobrynska, whose son died fighting, rejected outright concessions but supported halting combat to save lives. 'We don't have the opportunity to launch an offensive to recapture our territories,' the 57-year-old pensioner said, 'But to prevent people from dying, we can simply stop military operations, sign some kind of agreement, but not give up our territories.' Upset that Putin did not heed his calls to stop bombing Ukrainian cities, Trump almost two weeks ago moved up his ultimatum to impose additional sanctions on Russia and introduce secondary tariffs targeting countries that buy Russian oil if the Kremlin did not move toward a peace settlement. The deadline was Friday. But the White House did not answer questions that evening about the state of possible sanctions after Trump announced the Putin summit. Trump's recent criticism of Russian attacks on Ukraine marked a reversal for the president, who had previously praised Putin and castigated Zelensky over the war. His apparent turn toward Moscow now appears to be another shift. Gould-Davies likened attempts to understand that shift to 'Kremlinology' — the Cold War-era practice of deciphering opaque signals from Soviet leadership. 'We're … looking for clues and for hints … about what the hell is going on; what the mix of influences around Trump and indeed in Trump's head is propelling his latest statement,' he said. 'It's as if his disillusionment with Putin … never happened,' Gould-Davies said, pointing to a sudden return to the more conciliatory Russia policy Trump embraced at the start of his presidency. Prior to Trump announcing the meeting with Putin, his efforts to pressure Russia into stopping the fighting had delivered no progress. The Kremlin's bigger army is slowly advancing deeper into Ukraine at great cost in troops and armor while it relentlessly bombards Ukrainian cities. Two people died and 16 were wounded Saturday when a Russian drone hit a minibus in the suburbs of the Ukrainian city of Kherson, regional Gov. Oleksandr Prokudin said. Two others died after a Russian drone struck their car in the Zaporizhzhia region, according to regional Gov. Ivan Fedorov. Ukraine's air force said Saturday it intercepted 16 of the 47 Russian drones launched overnight, while 31 drones hit targets across 15 different locations. It also said it shot down one of the two missiles Russia deployed. Meanwhile, Russia's Defense Ministry said its air defenses shot down 97 Ukrainian drones over Russia and the Black Sea overnight and 21 more Saturday morning. Kullab and Morton write for the Associated Press and reported from Kyiv and London, respectively.
The Hill
20 minutes ago
- The Hill
Graham ‘confident' Trump will walk away from summit if Putin ‘insists on bad deal'
Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-S.C.), a major proponent of increased sanctions on Moscow and its allies, signaled Saturday that he supported President Trump's decision to meet with Russian President Vladimir Putin. Invoking former President Ronald Reagan's summit with former Russian leader Mikhail Gorbachev before the end of the Cold War and subsequent fall of the Soviet Union, Graham said he was 'confident' in Trump. 'I'm confident President Trump will walk away – like Reagan – if Putin insists on a bad deal,' the South Carolina Republican wrote on social platform X. 'Good luck, Mr. President, in your efforts to end this brutal war.' 'The world should be pulling for you. I know I am,' he added. The remarks follow Trump's announcement Friday that he would meet with the Russian leader in Alaska next week to discuss ending the more than three-year-long war in Ukraine. The president is proposing that the Eastern European nations swap territory in an effort to fast track a peace deal. Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky, who was not invited to the upcoming summit, has rejected the idea and urged the U.S. to give Kyiv a seat at the table. Trump also brushed off reports that he wanted Putin and Zelensky to speak first. 'He would like to meet with me,' he told reporters Friday, adding, 'and I'll do whatever I can to stop the killing.' The highly anticipated conversation also comes as criticism mounts following Trump's unfulfilled threat to hit Russia with new sanctions. The president originally gave Putin about 50-days to accept terms for a ceasefire but later shortened the timeline as the Kremlin continued to strike Ukraine. Trump has, however, announced up to 50 percent tariffs on India for purchasing Russian oil, a move that has seemingly only pushed Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi closer to Russia. The secondary sanctions were part of a bipartisan measure led by Graham and Sen. Richard Blumenthal (D-Conn.) aiming to defund Russia's war machine. 'Remember, while India is our friend, we have, over the years, done relatively little business with them because their Tariffs are far too high, among the highest in the World, and they have the most strenuous and obnoxious non-monetary Trade Barriers of any Country,' Trump wrote on Truth Social earlier this month, but did not issue similar sanctions on China, who is also a major trading partner with Moscow. Lawmakers have largely left the implementation of sanctions in Trump's hands. Graham on Saturday pushed back on critics, lauding Trump for being willing to speak with Putin directly before imposing financial restrictions. 'To those who criticize President Trump for being willing to meet with Putin to end the bloodbath in Ukraine — remember Reagan met with Gorbachev to try to end the Cold War,' the senator wrote. Amid the president's trade restrictions, Putin has touted strong relationships with Modi and Chinese President Xi Jinping. Putin and Modi recently spoke via phone and touted their alliance. 'Had a very good and detailed conversation with my friend President Putin. I thanked him for sharing the latest developments on Ukraine. We also reviewed the progress in our bilateral agenda, and reaffirmed our commitment to further deepen the India-Russia Special and Privileged Strategic Partnership,' Modi wrote on X. 'I look forward to hosting President Putin in India later this year.'
Fox News
20 minutes ago
- Fox News
Gutfeld appears on Fallon as Trump blasts other late-night comedians
'Fox News @ Night' panelists Tiana Lowe Doescher and Emily Austin react to Greg Gutfeld's appearance on 'The Tonight Show' with Jimmy Fallon amid President Trump's criticism of late-night comedy.
