The UK Government has given £1.5 million of taxpayer funding to one of the world’s largest abortion providers, for “sexual and reproductive health services” including abortions in Ukraine.
The Foreign, Commonwealth & Development Office (FCDO) has announced that it will be giving this money, provided by the UK taxpayer, to the abortion giant, International Planned Parenthood Federation (IPPF).
The FCDO says that “this crucial funding has supported over 20,000 people to access vital medical care” including “access to safe abortion care”.
The additional funding for abortion comes after the UK Government pledged over £4.7 billion “in non-military support” to Ukraine. This non-military support will be used to provide sexual and reproductive health services, which typically includes providing access to abortion.
In its Annual Performance Report for 2022, the IPPF boasts of providing 5 million abortions, an increase of 11% in 2021.
Last year, the Foreign, Commonwealth & Development Office (FCDO) launched an initiative “to tackle gender inequality around the world” with the use of over £200 million of taxpayers’ money for programmes that provide abortions and fund ‘pro-choice’ campaigns in Africa.
The programme is implemented by international abortion providers MSI Reproductive Choices (previously Marie Stopes International) and International Planned Parenthood Federation (IPPF).
A Government paper called ‘International Women and Girls Strategy 2023–2030‘ accompanying the launch of the initiative explains that one of its goals is to “prioritise the often-neglected issue of safe abortion”.
Taxpayers’ money wasted
The Government’s commitment to funding abortions in Ukraine is the latest in a series of instances of using taxpayers’ money to fund abortion overseas. In 2018, the Conservative Government pledged to spend £200 million on its Women’s Integrated Sexual Health programme.
In 2019 the Secretary of State for International Development, Alok Sharma MP, announced to the UN that the Department for International Development (DFID) would be providing an additional £600 million of taxpayer money for “family planning”, which included funding abortions.
This pledge was the UK Government’s largest ever stand-alone spend of taxpayer money in this area and comes on top of the £1.1 billion already pledged over a 5-year period beginning in 2017.
Polling shows that there is little public support for taxpayers’ money being spent in this manner with 65% of the British population opposed to this money being used to fund abortions overseas.
Spokesperson for Right To Life UK, Catherine Robinson, said “The people of Ukraine need medical supplies and basic necessities like food and water. They do not need foreign organisations ending the lives of the next generation of Ukrainians through abortion”.
