The Donald Trump administration has destroyed contraceptives, intrauterine devices, hormonal implants, and other birth control medications worth $10 million, asserting the administration will no longer be responsible for financing procedures and pills that are not “lifesaving” in low-income countries.
According to documents obtained by the New York Times, Mr Trump’s administration doled out an additional $167,000 as incineration costs to destroy contraceptives valued at $9.7 million warehoused in Belgium.
The pills and IUDs had been stuck in Brussels, where they were meant to be shipped out to low-income nations after Mr Trump shut down the operations of the United States Agency for International Development, the government outfit managing the project.
Despite overtures from other organisations, including the United Nations, Gates Foundation, and the Children’s Investment Fund Foundation, offering to buy the contraceptives, the U.S. government opted to burn them, saying no eligible buyers were found.
“President Trump is committed to protecting the lives of unborn children all around the world,” said Russell Vought, head of the White House Office of Management and Budget, now overseeing USAID disbandment. “The administration will no longer supply abortifacient birth control under the guise of foreign aid.”
The Times accused the administration of lying, asserting that newspaper checks on the inventory did not show abortifacients, medications that induce abortion.
The newspaper said the destroyed birth control pills were only meant to prevent ovulation and fertilisation of the female egg.
Efforts by the Belgian authorities to halt the incineration of still usable medical products on their soil fell through, as letters written by the nation’s foreign minister, Maxime Prévot, to the U.S. secretary of state appeared to only delay, rather than halt, the incineration.
