PHA-Exch> USAID Bans Contraceptive Supplies to Leading Family Planning Organisation

[Claudio Schuftan]

From: Marcy Bloom marcybloom at comcast.net


USAID Bans Contraceptive Supplies to Leading Family Planning Organisation

1 October 2008

Decision likely to result in MORE abortions and maternal deaths in Africa,
says MSI

London - The United States Agency for International Development (USAID) has
instructed its staff to force governments in several African countries to
discontinue the provision of US-funded contraceptive commodities to Marie
Stopes International (MSI), one of the world's leading family planning
organisations.

The USAID instruction, issued by Assistant Administrator for Global Health
Kent Hill, said the action was necessary because MSI works with the Chinese
Government, whom the US State Department accuses of "coercive abortion and
involuntary sterilisations".

MSI chief executive Dana Hovig stated emphatically today that MSI does not
support coercive abortion or involuntary sterilisation in China or
elsewhere. "To the contrary, MSI is one of the few organisations that has
worked over the past decade to increase the availability of voluntary,
client-centred family planning services in China," said Hovig. He blasted
the USAID decision as "purely political and dangerous to the lives of
women."

Hovig said the USAID instruction will "seriously disrupt" MSI's family
planning programmes in at least six African countries - Ghana, Malawi,
Sierra Leone, Tanzania, Uganda and Zimbabwe - including one where the
organisation delivers 25% of all family planning services nationally. Women
in these countries will be left with few options other than abortion, the
majority of which will be unsafe and will likely result in their death or
disability.

"At a time when world governments have pledged to increase their commitment
to improving the health of women, only the Bush Administration could find
logic in the idea that they can somehow reduce abortion and promote choice
for women in China by causing more abortion and gutting choice for women in
Africa," said Hovig. "This senseless decision is likely to have only one
clear consequence: the death of African women and girls. And the Bush
Administration should answer for that."

Hovig explained that, according to formulas developed by the Guttmacher
Institute, MSI's family planning services prevented 5-7 million unwanted
pregnancies in 2007 alone, thus preventing 1-1.5 million abortions. Most of
these abortions would have been unsafe, putting women's lives at risk. "For
every two intra-uterine devices (IUDs) the US government denies MSI, an
unsafe abortion could result unless MSI is able to find alternative
supplies," Hovig explained.

In its instruction, USAID justifies its bullying of African governments
under a little-known provision of US law called the Kemp-Kasten Amendment
which prohibits US foreign aid to any organisation that, according to the
President, "supports or participates in the management of a programme of
coercive abortion or involuntary sterilisation". Republican Administrations
dating back to President Reagan have used the law to deny funding to the
United Nations Population Fund (UNFPA) because of its work with the Chinese
government.

The current Bush Administration reviewed UNFPA's activities in 2001,
determined the agency was not in violation of Kemp-Kasten, and provided
$21.5 million to UNFPA. In July 2002, however, President Bush reversed his
position and invoked Kemp-Kasten to justify canceling the $34 million
appropriated by Congress for UNFPA in fiscal year 2002, despite the fact
that there had been no change in UNFPA's activities during this entire
period. The Bush Administration has maintained its ban on UNFPA funding ever
since.

"The Bush Administration's position over the years with respect to the UNFPA
programme in China has been purely political, and their harmful politics are
now being extended to MSI and the women we serve," said Hovig. "USAID needs
to decide what its purpose is: playing politics or saving lives."

MSI has worked in China since 1998, in partnership with the United Nations
Population Fund (UNFPA), the National Population and Family Planning
Commission (NPFPC) and the Ministry of Health, to implement UNFPA's Country
Programme. This programme aims to increase availability of quality,
integrated, client-centred, and gender-sensitive reproductive health and
family planning information and services, including those focusing on
HIV/AIDS and client rights, for women, men, young people and migrants.

Globally, MSI manages sexual and reproductive health programmes in 43
countries. In 2007 alone, MSI programmes protected the equivalent of 12.5
million couples from unwanted pregnancy, a 30% increase over the previous
year and the single largest year-on-year growth in the organisation's 32
year history. A majority of MSI's family planning impact is in rural,
underserved areas where women are particularly vulnerable and lives are most
at risk from unwanted pregnancy and unsafe abortion.

For more information or to arrange interviews, please contact:

Diana Thomas:
Tel: +44 (0)20 7034 2317
mailto:diana.thomas at mariestopes.org.uk

Anna Mawer:
Tel: +44 (0)20 7034 2307
mailto:anna.mawer at mariestopes.org.uk
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