FRONTLINE: At Home and Abroad, Trump Moves To Broaden Abortion Fight
“As a presidential candidate, Donald Trump vowed to restrict access to abortion. As president, he’s started doing just that — and more, pursuing a far-reaching strategy to reshape the federal government’s position on reproductive rights. … Trump didn’t just reinstate the Mexico City policy. On his third day as president, he expanded the policy in a memorandum, applying the restrictions beyond U.S. family planning funds to all U.S. global health assistance, which totals $10 billion. The Trump administration also cut funding for the United Nations Population Fund, which supports reproductive and maternal health programs in more than 150 countries, as other past Republican presidents have done. But then it went a step further, proposing to sever all funding for international family planning for the upcoming fiscal year … President Trump’s proposed budget for 2018 zeroes out the family planning funding, which provides women in developing countries with contraceptive services and supplies to avoid unintended pregnancies and unsafe abortions…” (Childress/Einbinder, 12/14).