December 19, 2025
By Jonathan Lambert
America's new top health diplomat is Bethany Kozma. The job she took on this week — leading the Department of Health and Human Services Office of Global Affairs — does not have a high profile. And Kozma herself is not a familiar name in the world of public health.
But it is a position with power — and Kozma has a record of public statements and activism on health issues, equating abortion with "murder" and campaigning against gender-affirming care.
December 15, 2025
Center for Reproductive Rights
The Trump administration will let tens of millions of dollars’ worth of contraception paid for by taxpayers expire rather than distribute it as foreign aid. The contraception, representing a value of at least $10 million and possibly as much as $40 million, was earmarked for women and girls in sub-Saharan Africa—where its loss could result in more than a million unintended pregnancies and thousands of maternal deaths. Multiple humanitarian organizations have offered to buy the birth control, but the administration has refused.
On August 29, 2025, the Center for Reproductive Rights filed a Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) request for information about the administration’s decision to let the contraception—and millions in taxpayer money—go to waste. The administration has not responded to the request. The Center is now suing.
Continued: https://reproductiverights.org/cases/holding-trump-accountable-wasting-millions-birth-control/
An aid agreement template would require countries to share vast amounts of health data, including on abortion, to receive funds to combat HIV and other infectious diseases.
Jessica Washington
December 1 2025
The Trump administration plans to condition global health assistance on foreign countries sharing significant amounts of health data with the United States, including on abortion, according to a template for an aid agreement obtained by The Intercept.
The template agreement, which references the President’s Emergency Plan for AIDS Relief, or PEPFAR — but also applies funding to fight malaria, tuberculosis, and other pathogens — would require countries that receive global health assistance to share a broad range of health care and pathogen data for the next 25 years.)
Continued: https://archive.is/ig9Q6
(https://theintercept.com/2025/12/01/pepfar-hiv-abortion-health-data-trump/)
U.S. cuts to global health funding are putting reproductive rights, healthcare access and human rights at risk worldwide. Human rights experts discuss exactly what’s happening—and what would stop the suffering.
10/19/2025
by Jaime M. Gher, Payal Shah and Floriane Borel
The U.S. has long been the largest donor to global health programs, but under the Trump administration, that support is rapidly disappearing. The resulting funding cuts are devastating reproductive health access, disease prevention efforts and human rights around the world.
In this Q&A, global health and human rights experts Jaime M. Gher, Payal Shah and Floriane Borel break down the global ripple effects—and the urgent need for action.
Continued: https://msmagazine.com/2025/10/19/usa-trump-international-global-health-aid-cuts/
April 2025
For 52 years, Ipas has supported communities around the world to ensure access to abortion and contraception for all. We have a deep history and experience working on abortion in places in the world with very restrictive laws, and with health systems that face critical challenges. Ipas has survived extraordinary challenges in the past, and our mission, persistence, and expertise are more critical than ever in the current moment.
The United States’ drastic dismantling of its $79.5 billion foreign aid program has significantly impacted development and humanitarian sectors and created chaos around the globe. Health systems have been crippled, and countless lives and livelihoods have been disrupted. This is a moment of inflection in the global health and development community.
U.S. restrictions on foreign aid like the global gag rule are endangering women and girls by cutting off access to essential reproductive healthcare in humanitarian crises.
2/18/2025
by Ira Memaj
Shortly after taking office, the Trump administration issued a cascade of executive orders—among them, the reinstatement of the Mexico City Policy, commonly referred to as the global gag rule (GGR). The GGR restricts U.S. funding for international nongovernmental organizations (NGOs) that provide, refer for, lobby or counsel on abortion care. While much has been covered about the GGR’s adverse effects on global health and NGOs, its impact on vulnerable populations in humanitarian settings, particularly refugee women and girls, has received less attention.
In 2024, a record 122.6 million people worldwide were forcibly displaced due to climate change, political unrest, persecution and armed conflict. More than 90 million women and girls are expected to require humanitarian aid, including sexual and reproductive health services, such as perinatal and abortion care, gender-based violence (GBV) support, and STI screening and treatment.
Continued: https://msmagazine.com/2025/02/18/us-global-gag-rule-refugee-women-healthcare-crisis-trump/
“There would be 1.3 million unsafe abortions.”
David Corn, Washington, DC, Bureau Chief. Mother Jones
Feb 12, 2025
In 2023, during a speech at a Washington, DC, gala for the far-right Faith & Freedom Coalition, Donald Trump declared that he was proud to be “the most pro-life president” in US history. Yet with the war on the federal government that he and his billionaire sidekick Elon Musk are now waging, one probable result will likely not please his conservative Christian allies: an increase in the number of abortions, perhaps by over 1 million.
The first target of the Trump-Musk crusade has been the US Agency for International Development, the federal agency that distributes foreign aid through programs that help millions of people defend against deadly diseases (such as malaria, AIDS, tuberculosis, Covid, and ebola), obtain clean water, gain access to health care, bolster democratic institutions, and build more productive local economies. Of its $23.4 billion budget for 2024, the agency earmarked $2.2 billion for health initiatives. About one-quarter of that was to be spent on clean-water programs. Two-hundred-and-forty-seven million dollars was committed to maternal and child health. Programs for family planning and reproductive health received $191 million. (Including other government programs, Congress in recent years has annually appropriated about $600 million in total for overseas family planning.)
Continued: https://www.motherjones.com/politics/2025/02/donald-trump-elon-musk-usaid-abortions/
MSF is committed to ensuring people have access to sexual and reproductive health services, but we cannot do it alone.
January 28, 2025
Doctors Without Borders/Médecins Sans Frontières (MSF) condemns the Trump Administration’s recent reinstatement of the Mexico City Policy, more commonly known as the Global Gag Rule, as well as the US government’s support of the so-called Geneva Consensus Declaration.
The Global Gag Rule prevents organizations abroad from using their own non-US government funds to provide or advocate for safe abortion care as a condition to receive US global health assistance. This includes direct services, as well as information, counseling, and referrals, even in countries where abortion is legal. When the policy was last in place from 2017 to 2021, critical health programs were disrupted and suspended in low- and middle-income countries.
January 25, 2025
Ipas
Late on Friday, January 24th, President Trump doubled down on his administration’s anti-abortion policies, reinstating the harmful Global Gag Rule, rejoining the non-binding Geneva Consensus Declaration (GCD), and strengthening the Hyde Amendment.
“These actions add up to a violation of human rights, bodily autonomy and democracy, as well as an unprecedented attack on the reproductive rights of people in the U.S. and across the globe,” says Ipas President and CEO Anu Kumar.
Continued: https://www.ipas.org/news/trumps-assault-on-human-rights-bodily-autonomy-and-democracy/
We're hurtling into a dark period for abortion rights and beyond. Get out your flashlights
Dr Anu Kumar
20 January 2025
With Trump 2.0, the US enters a new era – one where people’s rights, particularly those of women and girls, LGBTQIA+ people, Black or brown people, or immigrants, are ignored, or worse, violated. Climate change is not a concern. Disinformation is rampant. Reproductive freedom, particularly the access to abortion, is radically curtailed, despite broad voter support.
Most of us are familiar with (and frankly, are already experiencing) the Project 2025 playbook, which calls for dismantling democratic norms in the US, unitary executive power, harsh Christian nationalism, a punitive approach to foreign assistance and multilateralism, and violations of human rights. We're hurtling into a dark period. Get out your flashlights.
Continued: https://www.opendemocracy.net/en/trump-project-2025-abortion-rights-inauguration/
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