The Trump Administration announced that it would end funding to the U.N. agency via the State Department.
According to TIME, “the State Department issued a letter to the Senate Foreign Relations Committee on Monday announcing that it will no longer fund the U.N. Population Fund (UNFPA), which provides maternal- and child-health services in more than 150 countries worldwide.”
The defunding follows suit on the Trump enacted standard that cuts funding to any entity it believes practices abortions.
In a statement released on April 4, the UNFPA responded to the State Department’s claims:
“This decision is based on the erroneous claim that UNFPA ‘supports, or participates in the management of, a programme of coercive abortion or involuntary sterilization’ in China. UNFPA refutes this claim, as all of its work promotes the human rights of individuals and couples to make their own decisions, free of coercion or discrimination.”
In 2016 alone, the UNFPA was able to save 2,340 women from dying during pregnancy and childbirth; prevent 947,000 unintended pregnancies; and, prevent 295,000 unsafe abortions, according to their website.
The UNFPA is in over 150 countries and territories with the work it is doing (like most UN agencies) being financed by nations voluntarily.
In 2015, the United States gave $75 million to the UNFPA.
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