Trump administration halts funding for UN Population Fund, which aided ‘coercive population control’ programs

Reggie Littlejohn, president of Women’s Rights Without Frontiers, announced in a press release today that the Trump administration has cut off funding from the United States to the United Nations Population Fund (UNFPA) “on the basis that the UNFPA’s activities in China are complicit with that nation’s coercive population control program, the implementation of which includes forced abortion and involuntary sterilization.”

“We are thrilled that the U.S. is no longer funding forced abortion and involuntary sterilization in China,” writes Littlejohn. “The blood of Chinese women and babies will no longer be on our hands…. I have consistently advocated for the defunding of UNFPA over the years, most recently just a couple of weeks ago at the United Nations Commission on the Status of Women. Last month, I also briefed the State Department on continuing coercion, including forced abortion, under China’s Two-Child Policy,” including abortions even into the ninth month of pregnancy.

Littlejohn continues:

Some of these forced abortions have been so violent that the women themselves have died, along with their full term babies. There have been brutal forced sterilizations as well, butchering women and leaving them disabled….

The UNFPA’s silence in the face of decades of forced abortion has been a sword in the wombs of millions of women and babies of China. I rejoice with them that the foot of the UNFPA is finally off of their necks.

Late last year, Littlejohn also urged the U.S. government to investigate International Planned Parenthood Federation’s ties to China’s coercive population control regime. Planned Parenthood has reportedly been partnered with China in this way for decades.

Read Women’s Rights Without Frontiers’ full press release here.