The abrupt halt to USAID operations in January 2025, followed by the elimination of 83% of its programmes, has created a vacuum that ultra-conservative Christian organisations are moving to fill, according to reproductive justice campaigners. Health clinics worldwide shut down, depriving millions of essential medicines and services, particularly for HIV patients, women and adolescent girls.
Speaking at the International Conference on Family Planning in Bogotá, Beth Schlachter of MSI Reproductive Choices said the dismantling of US foreign assistance is part of a deliberate rebuilding process. New bilateral aid agreements, she warned, are likely to include conditions restricting family planning services.
In October, the Institute for Women’s Health celebrated the fifth anniversary of the Geneva Consensus Declaration, a manifesto rejecting a right to abortion. The declaration, originally signed by 34 countries, now has 40 signatories, half of them in Africa, with Hungary welcoming Guinea as the latest. Valerie Huber, the institute's president, aims to reach 80 countries within three years.
Huber’s Protego project seeks to transform the declaration into active policies. Critics, including Jamie Vernaelde of reproductive justice NGO Ipas, describe the project’s Women’s Optimal Health Framework as lacking detail and excluding marginalised communities such as people living with HIV, sex workers and sexual minorities. The framework prioritises parental rights over children’s rights and barely mentions modern contraception.
Huber rejected the criticism, stating that the framework includes over 1,000 citations and aims to reduce maternal mortality and improve health outcomes. However, campaigners remain on high alert, urging governments and NGOs to resist what they see as an attempt to undermine sexual and reproductive health progress worldwide.
