President George W. Bush in 2003 signed into law the President’s Emergency Plan For AIDS Relief, also known as PEPFAR, which became the largest governmental effort to combat a single disease.
PEPFAR today is credited with saving more than 25 million lives.
Biden, however, has used PEFAR funds as leverage to adopt his policies that would wipe out many unborn lives.
A House of Representatives bill currently on the table could keep him from doing that.
“We’re calling their bluff,” Rep. Chris Smith (R-New Jersey) said on Washington Watch Thursday.
“They keep saying PEPFAR does not promote abortion," Smith explained, "while all of the literature, and the things we’re hearing in the field reports, is that they have integrated abortion on demand promotion with HIV-AIDS work, just like the World Health Organization has done it, the UN AIDS organization, all the UN agencies, and International Planned Parent Federation, the global group.”
PEPFAR has received more than $100 billion in funding since 2013. Typically, the program is funded in four-year cycles, but Smith and other pro-life House members are working to block Biden’s abuse. The representatives are facing resistance within the GOP.
“We have some people in our party, particularly on the Senate side, and others who are pro-life, who are saying, ‘Just do a clean reauthorization for three or five years of this legislation.' In other words, no language of significance like the Mexico City policy, which means that we’re just rubber-stamping and saying very clearly, ‘We endorse what President Biden has done,'" Smith said.
The Mexico City Policy, enacted by Ronald Reagan in 1984, prohibits organizations that receive federal funds from performing or promoting abortion as a means of family planning in other nations. It has been in effect at various times depending on which party controls the White House.
Among other places, Americans see examples of Biden’s policy in his administration’s rush to fund abortion-related expenses for military members – and their dependents -- who are based in states that restrict abortion.
Smith says Biden is also imposing his abortion plan through Veterans Affairs.
“He’s doing it with the VA, making clinics provide abortions," Smith advised. "Those clinics and those hospitals are all about life-saving, not life-taking, and now he’s done it with this program as well.”
Biden rescinded the Mexico City Policy soon after taking office in 2021, a move that cleared the way for him to advance his abortion policy worldwide.
'They hate it'
Abortion is not the only social party the president is pressing overseas. His administration has also entered the transgender discussion in Japan.
Many conservative African nations, some of the hardest-hit at the height of the AIDS pandemic, benefited from PEPFAR at its outs. They’re not pleased with Biden’s interference in the abortion issue in their countries, Smith said.
“They hate it," he insisted. "They do not want abortion on demand in their countries, and they do not want the entirety of the LGBTQ agenda which is being foisted on them by large non-governmental organizations that take taxpayer funds – grant money – and promote anti-life pro-abortion policies.”
