For two decades, the United States has pursued a far-reaching global agenda to fight HIV and AIDS–an initiative credited with saving more than 25 million lives. But, the President’s Emergency Plan for AIDS Relief, better known as PEPFAR, has been abruptly bogged down in a domestic political fight. Republicans raised allegations that the program’s funding is being used to indirectly support abortions — claims that health advocates, Democrats and PEPFAR officials say are baseless. As a result of these accusations, lawmakers have spent months wrangling over whether Congress will reauthorize the program for five years, for one year or not at all — a decision that experts warn has both practical and symbolic consequences.
Treasured by medical professionals and praised by foreign leaders, PEPFAR is the world’s largest health program devoted to a single disease — a status that officials say achieves the dual goal of strengthening U.S. diplomatic ties and boosting public health. Since the program’s inception in 2003, spearheaded by President George W. Bush, PEPFAR has spent more than $100 billion across more than 50 countries; distributed millions of courses of medicine to treat and prevent HIV; collected data that shed new light on the virus’s spread; and forged durable partnerships with local governments and organizations.
Experts have credited PEPFAR for helping stabilize health systems in regions including sub-Saharan Africa, which was devastated by the spread of HIV in the 1990s, and for building global capacity for future crises. But the program is now dogged by accusations that its funds are helping prop up abortion providers, a charge first publicly leveled in a report from the conservative Heritage Foundation in May and amplified by Rep. Christopher H. Smith (N.J.), an anti-abortion Republican who chairs a key House panel. “It’s just dumbfounding to me that the charge has been taken seriously,” said Shepherd Smith, a co-founder of the Children’s AIDS Fund International who has worked closely with PEPFAR since its start and is among the advocates urging Congress to reauthorize the program before key provisions expire later this year.
The Biden administration had sought a “clean” five-year reauthorization of the HIV program, with no new policy restrictions, allowing Congress to quickly update the existing PEPFAR legislation without opening it back up to a lengthy debate. “What’s changed is the Biden administration’s radical insistence on ramming abortion into our foreign policy in an aggressive manner that we’ve never seen before,” Travis Weber said during an interview on July 24.
Treasured by medical professionals and praised by foreign leaders, PEPFAR is the world’s largest health program devoted to a single disease — a status that officials say achieves the dual goal of strengthening U.S. diplomatic ties and boosting public health. Since the program’s inception in 2003, spearheaded by President George W. Bush, PEPFAR has spent more than $100 billion across more than 50 countries; distributed millions of courses of medicine to treat and prevent HIV; collected data that shed new light on the virus’s spread; and forged durable partnerships with local governments and organizations.
Experts have credited PEPFAR for helping stabilize health systems in regions including sub-Saharan Africa, which was devastated by the spread of HIV in the 1990s, and for building global capacity for future crises. But the program is now dogged by accusations that its funds are helping prop up abortion providers, a charge first publicly leveled in a report from the conservative Heritage Foundation in May and amplified by Rep. Christopher H. Smith (N.J.), an anti-abortion Republican who chairs a key House panel. “It’s just dumbfounding to me that the charge has been taken seriously,” said Shepherd Smith, a co-founder of the Children’s AIDS Fund International who has worked closely with PEPFAR since its start and is among the advocates urging Congress to reauthorize the program before key provisions expire later this year.
The Biden administration had sought a “clean” five-year reauthorization of the HIV program, with no new policy restrictions, allowing Congress to quickly update the existing PEPFAR legislation without opening it back up to a lengthy debate. “What’s changed is the Biden administration’s radical insistence on ramming abortion into our foreign policy in an aggressive manner that we’ve never seen before,” Travis Weber said during an interview on July 24.
