Republican lawmakers question Biden's use of AIDS relief funding for allegedly promoting abortion abroad

WASHINGTON (TND) — The President's Emergency Plan for Aids Relief (PEPFAR) has received overwhelming bipartisan support over the years, but now Republican lawmakers argue the funding is being used to push what they call a radical left social agenda.

PEPFAR was established by President George W. Bush back in 2003.

Through PEPFAR, the U.S. government has invested over $100 billion in the global HIV/AIDS response, the largest commitment by any nation to address a single disease in history, saving 25 million lives, preventing millions of HIV infections, and accelerating progress toward controlling the global HIV/AIDS pandemic in more than 50 countries," according to the State Department.

"What Biden has done, he has now said that abortion promotion and performance is integrated with all of our HIV AIDS work," explained Rep. Chris Smith, R-N.J., in a recent interview. "They're promoting the groups with billions of dollars of grant money, $6 billion at least per year to promote abortion and they're telling them in plain language change the laws of those pro-life countries to pro-abortion."

The Congressman has supported the program in the past.

“They’re taking what was an initiative of George Bush that has been successful across the globe, particularly in Africa, and are now trying to make it a political issue about abortion,” Senate Foreign Relations Chair Bob Menendez, D-N.J. said to Politico.

The promotion of abortion and gender ideology and other sort of left-wing policies through the program itself, in primarily African countries, but also in other parts of the world," said Tim Meisburger, a Visiting Fellow in the Douglas and Sarah Allison Center for Foreign Policy Studies at The Heritage Foundation.

Meisburger says there is no data showing how many abortions have been funded but says there is evidence.

"We do know that PEPFAR is promoting the legalization of abortion in countries," he said. "There's a lot of evidence."

The Heritage Foundation also points to a letter from African leaders to Congress requesting PEPFAR remains true to their country's values.

"We were also grateful that the original strategy respected our values and focused PEPFAR on protecting and preserving life and emphasizing abstinence and responsible behavior and practices," the letter reads in part. "As you now seek to reauthorize PEPFAR funding, we want to express our concerns and suspicions that this funding is supporting so-called family planning and reproductive health principles and practices, including abortion, that violate our core beliefs concerning life, family, and religion."

We ask that PEPFAR remain true to its original mission and respect our norms, traditions, and values. We ask that those partner organizations with whom the U.S. government partners to implement PEPFAR programs in ways that are cognizant and respectful of our beliefs and not cross over into promoting divisive ideas and practices that are not consistent with those of Africa," the letter reads.

Meisburger says the program has other flaws too including the continued emergency denotation and weaknesses in its structure and approach.

Although PEPFAR claims to have saved 25 million lives, could those resources have saved even more lives if they had been distributed proportionally based on disease severity? Did the focus on just one disease in a few countries, rather than strengthening health systems and primary care, mean higher mortality rates for other diseases and countries?

With 60 percent of all U.S. health assistance going to PEPFAR, these resources are unavailable for other health investments in developing countries that might have even greater impact on local health. For example, diarrheal diseases kill more people in Africa than HIV/AIDS kills, and they can be prevented through cost-effective programs that increase access to clean water," Meisburger said in his report, "Reassessing America’s $30 Billion Global AIDS Relief Program."

Dr. Anand Parekh, chief medical adviser for the Bipartisan Policy Center disagrees.

"The one thing that PEPFAR has also done is strengthen the overall health systems in these countries to not only tackle HIV, but also TB and Malaria, and other neglected tropical diseases. There's also an epidemic of chronic diseases now in Africa and in developing countries, and so health system strengthening is critical," he explained.

PEPFAR was also important in strengthening the system so that many countries could better respond to COVID as well. So, I do think that even though it is focused on HIV, given that it also trains health workers, given that it supports the underlying infrastructure in many ways it does support combatting many of the conditions and illnesses there.

The medical doctor says the program benefits Americans too.

'Whether it's from an economic perspective and having more trading partners, whether it's better public opinion, having allies around the world from a national security perspective, ensuring that more countries around the world have stability," explained Parekh. "I would also add from a geopolitical perspective that right now there's a competition between the US and China and Russia, and what we have to offer many countries in the world are programs like PEPFAR, which these other countries don't."

President Biden requested $6.8 billion for PEPFAR for 2024.

If the funding is reauthorized, in 2024, PEPFAR is set to launch the Safe Births, Healthy Babies Initiative. It's a $40 million effort to eliminate mother-to-child transmission of HIV.

Parekh says he believes PEPFAR will be reauthorized but might be tweaked.