Melinda French Gates, billionaire and ex-wife of tech giant Bill Gates, has pledged $200 million to a number of pro-abortion organisations, at least five of which explicitly spend money funding abortions or lobbying Governments to repeal legislation that protects the unborn from abortion, making her one of the biggest individual donors to pro-abortion organisations in the world.
Writing in the New York Times last month, Gates announced she would be giving $1 billion (£782.4m) over the next two years “for people and organizations working on behalf of women and families around the world, including on reproductive rights in the United States”.
$200 million (£157 million) of this will be earmarked “to advance women’s power and protect their rights, including reproductive freedom”. The money will be distributed through her company Pivotal Ventures and will include providing funding for organisations that spend money funding abortions and promoting abortion in various ways.
Among the recipients of Gates’ money is the Center for Reproductive Rights (CRR), a pro-abortion lobbying group that aims to “expand abortion rights and access”. The group reported an income of $66.8 million for the financial year ending 30 June 2022.
Gates’ money will also be distributed to another pro-abortion lobbying group, National Women’s Law Center, in Washington, D.C., which lobbies to repeal legislation that protects the unborn from abortion and reported an income of $25 million in the same financial year as the CRR.
The Collaborative for Gender + Reproductive Equity, a group operating out of New York and which is committed to “protecting abortion access”, will also receive a portion of Gates’ $200 million.
In addition, two other organisations, Collective Future Fund and Ms. Foundation for Women, provide funding to other organisations that promote abortion.
Commenting on Gates’ funding for pro-abortion organisations, Carol Tobias, president of the National Right to Life Committee, said “Melinda French Gates could do much to help women and their preborn children on the national — and even international level — yet she has decided instead to pour money into the abortion industry that already makes billions of dollars by taking the lives of innocent preborn children”.
A change of mind on abortion
Despite the fact that the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation provided funding to abortion giant
International Planned Parenthood Federation in 1999, Melinda Gates has previously publicly distanced herself from abortion advocacy claiming: “I’ve decided not to engage on it publicly — and the Gates Foundation has decided not to fund abortion”.
However, in her guest essay in the New York Times, she makes reference to abortion becoming a matter for individual states to decide when Roe v Wade was overturned in 2022 as an apparent reason for her change of mind on the matter. “[I]n the post-Dobbs era” she said, “I now feel compelled to support reproductive rights here at home”.
In response to a question about her apparent change of mind on this issue, a spokesperson for Pivotal Ventures Foundation said: “Melinda’s focus on women’s power and influence hasn’t changed. She believes that health is a critical lever in enabling women to have their full power in society. Pivotal already funds organizations working across the reproductive health continuum, and this new commitment will include groups working on reproductive rights”.
An additional $240 million will be divided amongst a “group of 12 global leaders” including former New Zealand Prime Minister, Jacinda Ardern, to distribute to charities they consider to be improving “womens’ health”. Along with each of the other “global leaders”, Ardern, whose Government introduced one of the most extreme abortion laws in the world in New Zealand in 2020, will be the recipient of $20 million of Gates’ money.
Spokesperson for Right To Life UK, Catherine Robinson, said “It is disappointing when any money is spent funding abortions or lobbying Governments to repeal legislation that protects the unborn from abortion, but especially so when it is such a large amount. This money could be spent on supporting women who feel they have no choice but to have an abortion and instead enable them to give birth to their child”.
