{"id":5976,"date":"2025-03-25T10:35:29","date_gmt":"2025-03-25T14:35:29","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/consistent-life.org\/blog\/?p=5976"},"modified":"2025-03-25T10:35:29","modified_gmt":"2025-03-25T14:35:29","slug":"u-s-a-i-d-the-good-and-the-bad","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/consistent-life.org\/blog\/index.php\/2025\/03\/25\/u-s-a-i-d-the-good-and-the-bad\/","title":{"rendered":"U.S.A.I.D. \u2013 The Good and the Bad"},"content":{"rendered":"

by Rachel MacNair<\/p>\n

The Trump administration is trying to shut down the United States Agency for International Development. The courts are weighing in and developments are likely to change between the time I write this and the time you read it.<\/p>\n

The US Congress is supposed to have a say since it created the agency and legally has to have a say in shutting it down, but it seems to be amenable to the idea. US Secretary of State Marco Rubio has said the humanitarian aid will be transferred to the State Department and that he\u2019ll then work with Congress to shut down the agency itself.<\/p>\n

So what\u2019s a consistent lifer to think? We at the Consistent Life Network aren\u2019t going to have an opinion on how the bureaucracy defines which group is doing what so long as it\u2019s done well. We wouldn\u2019t get into an argument over whether humanitarian aid like food and medical care is administered by U.S.A.I.D. or instead by the US State Department, or some other entity, as long as it\u2019s distributed with life-saving impact that preserves the dignity of recipients. But the extent to which that\u2019s been what\u2019s been happening all these decades isn\u2019t as total as it should be (as discussed under negatives below).<\/p>\n

Opponents of war as we are, the division of sides into the white hats and black hats is something we know better than to do. That\u2019s not how the real world works. It\u2019s a mixture, as practically all of life is, and so I\u2019m going to offer thoughts on two positives and two negatives about U.S.A.I.D.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

Positive \u2013 Humanitarian Assistance<\/strong><\/h3>\n

This New York Times <\/em>opinion piece says it well: As Fellow Pro-Lifers, We Are Begging Marco Rubio to Save Foreign Aid<\/a> (February 10, 2025).<\/p>\n

One of George W. Bush\u2019s major achievements was the PEPFAR program, giving medical help to HIV-AIDS patients. It has provided help to over 20 million people<\/a> world-wide, so the lives saved are probably far greater than the number that were taken in his wars. The wars still shouldn\u2019t have happened, of course, but it gives you a sense of the magnitude.<\/p>\n

As the \u201cFellow Pro-lifers\u201d say:<\/p>\n

We think PEPFAR should be a special priority of the pro-life movement. Its treatments empower mothers to protect their unborn children and provide hope that the births of these children will be moments of joy, not despair. It\u2019s the same kind of hope we\u2019ve tried to give mothers when we\u2019ve stood outside abortion clinics to offer alternatives, or counseled women through high-risk pregnancies.<\/p>\n

This is one of many U.S.A.I.D. initiatives<\/a> fighting disease. Food aid to places of famine is also crucial.<\/p>\n

Elon Musk is claiming \u201cno one has died<\/a>\u201d due to his cuts, but this is clearly untrue. The lack of care with which sudden cuts were made has led to deaths;<\/strong> The New York Times<\/em> details some in the linked article.<\/p>\n

Even if the administration gets its act together to undo the damage to the organizations that sudden cut-off caused, there will have been deaths in the meantime. Heartless bureaucrats that can\u2019t be bothered to be careful or well-informed about what their policies are actually doing on the ground should be mortified to realize it. They need to repent.<\/p>\n

Positive \u2013 Autocrats Hate It<\/strong><\/h3>\n

From Jon Lee Anderson in The New Yorker: <\/em>Growing Up U.S.A.I.D.<\/a> (February 25, 2025):<\/p>\n

Perhaps the best advertisement for U.S.A.I.D. is that autocrats tend to hate it. In 2012, Vladimir Putin expelled the agency from Russia, purportedly for inciting pro-democratic unrest; Evo Morales, the left-wing president of Bolivia, ejected it the next year. When Trump announced recently that the program would be killed, there were celebratory announcements from petty despots around the world\u2014in Belarus, Venezuela, Nicaragua, El Salvador. Hungary\u2019s Viktor Orb\u00e1n chortled on Facebook that Trump was upending the world order by ending support of U.S.A.I.D., \u201cgender ideology,\u201d \u201cfunding for the globalist Soros,\u201d \u201cillegal migration,\u201d and \u201cthe Russia-Ukraine war.\u201d Orb\u00e1n added that he intended to hunt down recipients of U.S.A.I.D. funding in Hungary. \u201cNow is the moment when these international networks have to be taken down,\u201d he said. \u201cIt is necessary to make their existence legally impossible.\u201d<\/p>\n

Negative \u2013 A Pro-Abortion Organization<\/strong><\/h3>\n

Last year, about $607.5 million<\/a> of the U.S.A.I.D. budget was for family planning.<\/p>\n

Under Republican administrations since Reagan, this has by executive order not included abortion. Reagan established this as \u201cthe Mexico City policy\u201d because of a conference in Mexico City in 1984, and the name has stuck.<\/p>\n

All Democratic administrations since then have rescinded the policy by executive order.<\/p>\n

So under Democratic administrations, U.S.A.I.D. has become one of the major promoters of abortion internationally. Millions of dollars have not only gone to abortion provision, but lobbying governments to legalize abortion.<\/p>\n

It has been common to call the Mexico City policy a \u201cglobal gag rule.\u201d This pejorative view of what\u2019s actually a life-saving policy, when held by the people supposed to carry out aid under Republican administrations, will do great damage. Aid workers have gotten used to being able to re-establish abortion advocacy when Democratic administrations come to power.<\/p>\n

Promoting abortion in countries that view it as baby-killing that they don\u2019t want is a form of cultural imperialism.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

From Is Legal = Safe?<\/a>, May 15, 2014, Culture of Life Africa<\/a><\/p>\n

As International Planned Parenthood Federation (and other like-minded groups) continues to mount coordinated pressure on African nations for legal and “safe” abortion for women, we see them pouring astronomical amounts of money to grease corrupt palms, confuse undecided minds and harden unsuspecting hearts towards the unborn in various African countries.<\/p>\n

This is most unfortunate because throughout our Continent, there is a unanimous celebration of human life from the womb . . .<\/p>\n

But all of this is under severe attack by the well-paid proponents of Abortion who have flown into Africa on the wings of wealthy, western pro-abortion organizations \u00a0. . . They speak with the unmistakable force and arrogance of 21st century imperialists<\/p>\n

Negative \u2013 Imperialism<\/strong><\/h3>\n

Again from Growing Up U.S.A.I.D<\/a>:<\/p>\n

\u00a0<\/em>As my family moved around the world, it was clear that perceptions of the United States were far more complicated than that, and not just because of the bloody debacle in Vietnam and the racist outrages back home. In my twenties, when I told people that my father had worked for U.S.A.I.D., the inevitable knowing response was \u201cYou mean the C.I.A.\u201d<\/p>\n

The proximity between the two agencies was hard to deny. In the sixties, America often disbursed aid as \u201ccredits\u201d to foreign governments, which in turn supplied the equivalent amount of local currency to the U.S. Embassy. The funds were apportioned by the \u201ccountry intelligence team\u201d\u2014which invariably included the C.I.A. station chief. The C.I.A. also partnered with the Office of Public Safety, an American program that trained police forces in Vietnam, Indonesia, the Philippines, and elsewhere. In 1973, after reports emerged that its graduates had engaged in terror and torture, Congress disbanded it. A Senate Foreign Relations Committee report lamented that the program\u2019s notoriety had helped \u201cstigmatize the total U.S. foreign aid effort.\u201d<\/p>\n

And a final thought from that article:<\/p>\n

Recently, the left-wing author Ignacio Ramonet, who is close to the Venezuelan dictator Nicol\u00e1s Maduro, took a moment during his weekly podcast to ponder the significance of Trump\u2019s dismantling of U.S.A.I.D. \u201cIt\u2019s just incredible,\u201d he exclaimed. \u201cIs he destroying the U.S. empire from within?\u201d<\/p>\n

====================<\/p>\n

For more of our posts on recent politics, see: <\/em><\/p>\n

Not Panicked \/ Always Panicked<\/a><\/p>\n

Trump Sabotaging the Pro-Life Movement<\/a><\/p>\n

The Deserving and Undeserving Poor vs. the Worthy and Unworthy of Life<\/a>: How Both Major Political Parties Pick and Choose Who They Help and Whom They Kill<\/p>\n

Aftermath of State Ballot Initiatives\u00a0<\/a><\/p>\n

Presidential Election 2024: Consistent Life Perspectives<\/a><\/p>\n

Pro-life Voting Strategy: A Problem without an Answer<\/a><\/p>\n

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by Rachel MacNair The Trump administration is trying to shut down the United States Agency for International Development. The courts are weighing in and developments are likely to change between the time I write this and the time you read it. The US Congress is supposed to have a say since it created the agency… <\/p>\n