Reinstate and widen the Mexico City Policy on abortion
What the document says“the next conservative Administration should issue an executive order that, at a minimum, reinstates PLGHA and summarily blocks funding to UNFPA”
Protecting Life in Global Health Assistance, known as the Mexico City Policy, bars US global health funding to foreign organizations that perform or promote abortion. The chapter asks for it to be reinstated, widened to all foreign assistance including humanitarian aid, extended to subgrantees and subcontractors, with exemptions for US-based NGOs and international organizations removed, compliance reported, and debarment as a penalty. It also asks that the Biden memorandum of January 28, 2021 be rescinded.
What the document actually says“the next conservative Administration should issue an executive order that, at a minimum, reinstates PLGHA and summarily blocks funding to UNFPA”
Sign an order bringing back this rule. Also cut money to one United Nations fund.
A rule stops US aid going to groups abroad that do abortions. Presidents have turned it on and off. The book wants it back. It wants it to cover more kinds of aid.
The Mexico City Policy
2025-01-24 · 90 FR 8753
The memorandum of January 24, 2025 revokes the January 28, 2021 memorandum, reinstates the January 23, 2017 Mexico City Policy, and directs the Secretary of State, with Health and Human Services, to implement a plan extending the reinstated requirements to global health assistance furnished by all departments and agencies. It also directs the Secretary of State to ensure that no taxpayer money funds organizations or programs supporting or participating in coercive abortion or involuntary sterilization. Where it falls short of the proposal: it does not name the United Nations Population Fund or block its funding, and its extension reaches global health assistance rather than all foreign assistance including humanitarian aid. It says nothing about subgrantees and subcontractors or about removing the exemptions for United States based nongovernmental organizations and international organizations. The State Department rule Protecting Life in Foreign Assistance, published January 27, 2026 and effective February 26, 2026, later carried the policy into an award term binding foreign NGOs, United States NGOs, public international organizations, foreign governments and parastatals.
The memo pulls a 2021 memo and brings back the Mexico City Policy of 2017. Two cabinet heads must extend it to all global health aid. But it does not name or defund the UN population fund. It reaches health aid, not all foreign aid. It says nothing about the groups working under those grants, or about the current carve outs.