Trump administration has just sent $10m worth of birth control to be burnt – rather than donate it as aid

A stock of $ 9.7 million (7.2 million pounds sterling) contraceptivesbought by the United States for use in low-income countries is now in transit to France to be burned rather than distributed as help.

Governments and family planning The providers of France and Belgium – where the articles were kept in a warehouse – rushed to prevent the United States from destroying supplies.

Products, which include contraceptive pills, implants and IUDs (intrauterine devices or coils) and have already been paid by American taxpayers, are sent to a specialized installation to be cremated, at an additional cost of $ 167,000 (£ 124,000).

It is despite the offers of charitable organizations, including MSI reproductive choices and the International Planned Parenthood (IPPF) federation to cover the donation costs of the donation contraception.

The Belgian Foreign Ministry also said that it was: “Exploring all possible avenues to prevent the destruction of these actions, including their temporary resettlement”.

A ministry spokesman said the ministry had acted as soon as plans to destroy contraception stocks, held in Geel in the north of the country, drew his attention-in particular by sending official diplomatic representations to the United States Embassy.

The French deputy Soumya Bourouaha asked the Prime Minister on Monday that the Prime Minister “does everything possible to save these contraceptive actions and deliver them to the populations who need them”.

However, negotiations failed, The independent understand. The supplies are now being transferred between the two countries.

Access to contraception can be wild: unwanted pregnancies in countries with a high maternal mortality and no access to a safe abortion can be a death sentence. Research from the Guttmacher Institute, a reproductive rights research group, found around 600 million dollars spent family planning The US government abroad in 2024 prevented 34,000 maternal deaths and more than five million dangerous abortions.

Contraception was purchased within the framework of a contract managed by the Development Company Chemonics, which was partially canceled as part of Donald TrumpThe deep cuts with foreign aid. The Chemonics said that he was unable to comment on the program.

Two charitable family planning organizations said that project representatives said that the destruction of contraceptives was part of an effort to save money, despite the fact that supplies have already been paid.

Marcel Van Valen, the head of the IPPF supply chain, said that the argument that the destruction of these products would have been lower than a lower cost was, “total nonsense” adding that the charity had offered to “”Go collect the products to recondition them [at] Our cost and to distribute everyone with our partners and even competitors in this space ”.

MSI’s associate advocacy director Sarah Shaw said: “This is not a question of government efficiency. It is a question of exporting a harmful ideology for women.”

To give an example, she said: “The annual contraceptive bill for Senegal for the country is $ 3 million per year. The content of this warehouse could therefore have met all the contraceptive needs of Senegal for three years. And we will rather see massive shortages.

“We are going to see Senegalese women die of a dangerous abortion, girls having to abandon school.”

A bill was presented by Democratic senators Jeanne Shaheen and Brian Shatz to prevent the destruction of the $ 9.7 of contraceptives specifically, as well as other drugs and foods. However, he should not pass because he would need republican support.

The IPPF had previously raised concerns according to which additional $ 2 million of condoms hosted in a warehouse in Dubai were also online to be destroyed. These were purchased within the framework of the HIV program, the president’s emergency plan for the relief of AIDS (PEPFAR).

A spokesperson for the State Department described the Birth control Currently intended for destruction as “abortive”, and said that he did not include condoms. They added that Mexico City Policy, also known as the Global Rule of the Bag – introduced for the first time in 1984 and brought back by each Republican President since – forbidden to provide assistance to foreign non -governmental organizations that carry out or promote abortion.

We do not know what the administration means by contraception which is abortive (an agent who causes abortions).

A Democratic Assistant of the Congress whose team visited the warehouse told The independent Their team which had visited the Belgian warehouse had only seen contraceptives, not abortion pills.

The actions they had seen did not approach their expiration date.

“The contraceptives save tons of women like pregnancy after sexual assault or rape and save millions … Also of abortions,” said the assistant.

“It is simply not true that mifepristone or one of these abortion pills are in these warehouses. It’s completely false. “

In the past, conservative and religious groups in the United States have claimed that contraceptives have claimed that the number of abortion agents.

Dr. Janet Barter, president of the clinical membership organization in the United Kingdom, the faculty of sexual and reproductive health care, explained that an abortion has been defined by the moment “there is pregnancy and abortion tablets or drugs cause loss of pregnancy.” On the other hand, “when contraception is used correctly, there is no pregnancy.

“It is very simple with the pills, the implants, the injections. They all work by preventing you from producing an egg. If there is no egg, there is no pregnancy,” she said, while in the case of the copper coil, it works largely by killing the sperm before an egg can be fertilized.

While family planning has entered the shooting line, Doctors Without Borders (MSF) stressed that it was the last of a series of destruction, including 500 tonnes of emergency food aid and nearly 800,000 MPox vaccines which had been authorized to expire while epidemics are raging.

“The US government has made this problem,” said Benoît, CEO of MSF USA April. “Destroying it from precious medical articles that have already been paid by American taxpayers does nothing to combat waste or improve efficiency. This administration is willing to burn birth control and let food supplies rot, risk the health and life of people to push a political program. ”

This article was produced as part of the independent Rethink the world aid project