African officers urge Congress to make sure HIV/AIDS funding isn’t supporting abortion

African leaders are searching for assurances that U.S. funding to fight HIV/AIDS isn’t being funneled to advertise abortion beneath the Biden administration.

More than 100 African governmental and church officers urged Congress to make sure that the President’s Emergency Plan for AIDS Relief, or PEPFAR, stays “true to its original mission” by respecting “our norms, traditions, and values.”

The $6 billion foreign-assistance program launched by President George W. Bush in 2003 has drawn renewed consideration this yr because it comes up for reauthorization. 

“As you now seek to reauthorize PEPFAR funding, we want to express our concerns and suspicions that this funding is supporting so-called family planning and reproductive health principles and practices, including abortion, that violate our core beliefs concerning life, family, and religion,” stated the June 6 letter led by Alban Bagbin, speaker of the Parliament of Ghana.

They famous that this system’s unique technique “respected our values and focused PEPFAR on protecting and preserving life and emphasizing abstinence and responsible behavior and practices.”

“We ask that those partner organizations with whom the U.S. government partners to implement PEPFAR programs in ways that are cognizant and respectful of our beliefs and not cross over into promoting divisive ideas and practices that are not consistent with those of Africa,” the African leaders stated.

Their letter follows the State Department’s launch of “Reimagining PEPFAR’s Strategic Direction: Fulfilling America’s Promise to End the AIDS/HIV Pandemic by 2030,” a report that requires integrating the HIV program with areas similar to “sexual reproductive health.”

The report issued in September additionally commits to partnering with U.S. organizations on priorities together with “sexual and reproductive health and rights.”

Sounding the alarm was Rep. Chris Smith, New Jersey Republican, who fired off a “Dear Colleague” letter final week warning that “President Biden has hijacked PEPFAR … in order to promote abortion on demand.”

U.S. Global AIDS Coordinator John Nkengasong rejected the assertion, saying at an occasion in Washington, D.C., on Wednesday that “PEPFAR has never, will not ever, use that platform in supporting abortion,” based on Devex International Development. 

Mr. Smith, who chairs the House Foreign Affairs Subcommittee on Global Health, Global Human Rights and International Organizations, stated that any multi-year reauthorization laws should embrace anti-abortion language.

“Twenty years ago, PEPFAR was enacted to put a tourniquet on the HIV/AIDS pandemic — and in 2018, I was the prime sponsor of the bill enacted into law to reauthorize PEPFAR for five more years — the program has saved millions of lives,” Mr. Smith stated within the June 6 letter. “Yet, the noble goals of PEPFAR must not now — or ever — be compromised by integrating the promotion of abortion.” 

He accused non-governmental organizations working in Africa that obtain PEPFAR funding of plugging abortion, citing Pathfinder International, which he stated collected $5 million during the last two years and “lobbies to weaken or eliminate pro-life laws in nations around the world.”

Pathfinder denied utilizing PEPFAR to advertise abortion, saying the funding is used on HIV-related companies similar to antiretroviral remedy, HIV testing, prevention of mother-to-child transmission, and tuberculosis. 

“If PEPFAR is not reauthorized, millions of people will suffer, and the HIV pandemic will surge in multiple countries,” stated Pathfinder in a June 8 assertion. “Pathfinder calls for the reauthorization of PEPFAR to continue fighting the HIV pandemic and save lives.”

Mr. Biden has already lifted restrictions on abortion entry overseas. He rescinded in January 2021 the Mexico City coverage, which requires non-governmental organizations to make sure that they won’t promote abortion as a technique of household planning as a situation of U.S. monetary help.

Other African officers on the letter embrace authorities leaders in Ethiopia, Kenya, Liberia, Namibia, Uganda, Zambia and Zimbabwe, in addition to Catholic Archbishop Alick Banda of Zambia and Archbishop Maurice M. Makumba of Kenya.