Marie Stopes International, a major London-based family planning organization, will no longer receive condoms supplied by USAID to African governments. The move comes in an apparent retaliation by the United States for the charity's work in China with the United Nations, which is accused by the Bush administration of condoning forced abortions. As The Guardian reports:
MSI has categorically denied that it supports forced abortions or coercive sterilisation in China or anywhere else in the world, and says that the actions of the Bush government will result in more abortions in Africa, as women will be unable to get contraceptives and will end up with unwanted pregnancies.
MSI says the USAID edict will seriously hamper its work in at least six African countries – Ghana, Malawi, Sierra Leone, Tanzania, Uganda and Zimbabwe. USAID is the biggest supplier of contraceptives in many African countries.
According to MSI, the inevitable consequence will be more abortions. It estimates that it will lose $1.5m worth of supplies in the next year, resulting in 325,000 extra unwanted pregnancies in the six African countries and 65,000 abortions.
USAID denies this and says that there won't be any changes in its supplies of contraceptives to these countries. I am assuming that some ideologically acceptable charities (OK with handing out condoms but not any mentions of the "a" word) will handle some of the load.
The United Nations Population Fund, of course, had its funding cut off back in 2002 by the Bush administration, which does not grant funds to any foreign charities having anything to do with abortion. The action against MSI goes a step further. The charity does not receive U.S. government funds and has worked in China since 2000. MSI lists abortion as one of the services it provides in China (but not in the Africa, where it has a much longer presence) on its Web site. One thing that I am unclear about is why the Bush administration decided to do this now since, presumably, all of this was known for quite a while.
