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This is an adapted excerpt from the Sept. 28 episode of “Velshi.”
No area of government seems to be safe from the clutches of Project 2025; that includes the U.S. Agency for International Development, also known as USAID. Chapter 9 of the far-right blueprint is dedicated to USAID, which distributes aid to more than 100 countries in the form of humanitarian assistance, health infrastructure and economic development.
Project 2025 sees USAID’s status as one of the world’s biggest humanitarian organizations as an opportunity to export its right-wing culture war obsessions to the world. That includes abortion.
On page 260, Project 2025 calls for reinstating the Protecting Life in Global Health Assistance policy, widely known as the “Mexico City Policy.” It’s an old policy that blocks U.S. federal funding for organizations that perform or promote abortion as a method of family planning in foreign countries, first introduced by President Ronald Reagan.
But if the Mexico City policy’s goal was to stop abortion … it didn’t work. Countries in sub-Saharan Africa affected by the policy, for example, saw increased abortion rates, according to a 2019 study featured in the Lancet Global Health Journal.
On page 265, Project 2025 asserts, “The continued high rate of maternal and infant mortality is a persistent global tragedy. Contrary to current publicity, this problem is not solved by abortion.” That’s actually contrary to reality. Decreased access to abortion means increased maternal mortality rates. According to the World Health Organization, nearly half of all abortions conducted worldwide are considered “unsafe,” and according to the Guttmacher Institute, nearly 11% of all maternal mortality comes from these unsafe abortions.
As I’ve said time and time again: Abortion is health care. In America and around the world, restricting abortion means restricting women’s health care.
Project 2025 also wants the president to be able to dictate abortion policy worldwide. A section on page 261 reads:
Current law in the Foreign Assistance Act gives the President broad authority to set “such terms and conditions as he may determine” on foreign assistance, which legally empowers the next conservative President to expand this pro-life policy.
The goal here is to hold the rights of women hostage, with the carrot of U.S. aid in exchange.
This chapter’s war on women continues. On page 259, the plan suggests:
[USAID] should remove all references, examples, definitions, photos, and language on USAID websites, in agency publications and policies, and in all agency contracts and grants that include the following terms: “gender,” “gender equality,” “gender equity,” “gender diverse individuals,” “gender aware,” “gender sensitive,” etc. It should also remove references to “abortion,” “reproductive health,” and “sexual and reproductive rights” and controversial sexual education materials.
This head-in-the-sand approach to those big scary woke words may be in line with right-wing domestic politics, but fighting this culture war on the global stage would be an incredible disservice to women everywhere.
The USAID Office of Population and Reproductive Health actually helps fight child marriage. It also supports programs aiming to end female genital mutilation and gender-based violence. But Project 2025 is so immersed in the right-wing culture wars that it abandons all other reasoning.
Case in point: On climate change, page 257 reads: “The aid industry claims that climate change causes poverty, which is false. Enduring conflict, government corruption, and bad economic policies are the main drivers of global poverty.”
Again, reality would disagree. The impacts of climate change, like increased frequency of extreme weather, more droughts and harsher heat, could push more than 100 million people into poverty by 2030, according to a report from the World Bank. Yes, you read that correctly: not keep 100 million people in poverty, but push 100 million more into it.
Page 257 is chock full of ideas: It suggests that:
The next conservative Administration should rescind all climate policies from its foreign aid programs (specifically USAID’s Climate Strategy 2022–2030); shut down the agency’s offices, programs, and directives designed to advance the Paris Climate Agreement; and narrowly limit funding to traditional climate mitigation efforts. … The agency should cease collaborating with and funding progressive foundations, corporations, international institutions, and NGOs that advocate on behalf of climate fanaticism.
This would be a death blow to the fight against global climate change. USAID’s climate strategy is full of goals to reduce emissions, conserve at-risk ecosystems, and develop renewable energy systems around the world. Cutting this funding would hurt the folks already disproportionately feeling the effects of climate change: The 74 lowest-income nations contribute to only one-10th of emissions but stand to be affected the most by climate change.
So there you have it: Women as breeding stock and the world as a dumping ground — that’s international development courtesy of Project 2025.
Armand Manoukian and Allison Detzel contributed.