The Trump administration is about to destroy nearly $10 million worth of contraception. Taxpayers are also footing an extra $167,000 just to have it all burned.
Instead of donating the supplies, they’re torching contraceptive pills, IUDs, and implants. Some charities offered to take them for free, but that was turned down.
The government already paid $9.7 million for the stockpile. Now they’re spending more just to get rid of it.
This is all part of Trump’s push to shut down USAID. That’s the group behind a big chunk of America’s global aid. In 2023, the U.S. spent $68 billion on international aid. That was just 0.6 percent of the total $6.75 trillion federal budget.
The move is supposed to help cut the wage bill and reduce spending abroad. Trump has said it is important for shrinking the national debt, which is over $36 trillion.
Still, this destruction plan adds another $167,000 in costs. Meanwhile, the International Planned Parenthood Federation offered to cover everything, including storage, packaging, distribution.
Marcel Van Valen from IPPF said it was “utter nonsense”. He explained that IPPF offered to take full responsibility, saying: “[IPPF has offered to] go and collect the products, to repack them [at] our cost and to do the distribution throughout the globe with our partners and even competitors in this space”.
MSI Reproductive Choices also stepped up and said they’d take the products. But that offer was ignored as well. Sarah Shaw from MSI said: “This isn’t about government efficiencies. This is about exporting an ideology that’s harmful to women.”
She pointed out that Senegal’s yearly contraception budget is $3 million. “The contents of that warehouse could have met all of Senegal’s contraceptive needs for three years. And instead, we’re going to see massive shortages.
“We’re going to see Senegalese women dying of unsafe abortion, girls having to drop out of school.”
All of the products were stored in France and Belgium. Now they’re being hauled to a facility to be incinerated.
