Biden admin pressuring African country to expand abortion by withholding aid: report

WASHINGTON, D.C. (LifeSiteNews) – The Biden administration is attempting to use foreign aid to pressure the African nation of Sierra Leone to decriminalize abortion in its final weeks, according to a new report by the Daily Signal.

According to a “former senior U.S. government official who has worked in the West African region,” the Biden administration wants to cancel a five-year, $480 million agreement between the U.S. foreign aid agency Millennium Challenge Corporation (MCC) and Sierra Leone for affordable electricity if the latter does not approve the misnamed Safe Motherhood Act, which would legalize abortion for any reason in the first 14 weeks of pregnancy and would legalize it up to birth for a woman’s “mental health.”

MCC press secretary Jenel Few denied knowledge of any such bill or any plans to connect funding to its passage, claiming that “any such legislation would be an internal matter for Sierra Leone with no U.S. government development funds made contingent on its passage.” But an “informed NGO leader in Sierra Leone” also told the Daily Signal that the White House was indeed pressuring the government to pass the bill.

“It is deeply disturbing, but not terribly surprising, that we are hearing reports that the Biden administration is threatening to withhold foreign assistance to Sierra Leone unless legislators there pass the deceptively named ‘Safe Motherhood Act’ legislation that would legalize abortion in Sierra Leone, a country that currently protects unborn life,” Republican U.S. Rep. Chris Smith of New Jersey said. “Pro-life countries should be celebrated and respected for protecting unborn children and their mothers — not penalized by a pro-abortion, lame-duck Biden administration.”

As co-chair of the Pro-Life Caucus, Smith says he plans to conduct a thorough review of “actions by all U.S. agencies, from USAID to the Millennium Challenge Corporation, to determine whether U.S. laws were violated by U.S. government staff through misallocation — or threat of misallocation — of U.S. funding in order to pressure countries to change their pro-life laws” once President Donald Trump replaces Joe Biden next month.

Since taking office, the Biden administration has aggressively used foreign aid to attempt to pressure other countries to conform to its pro-abortion values.

One of its first acts was to rescind the Mexico City Policy that prohibited taxpayer dollars from supporting elective abortions abroad, and it has made HIV/AIDS support funds contingent on support for legal abortion. Last year, it pressured the small North African country of Benin to remove its name from the Geneva Consensus declaration, which denies that there is a “right” to abortion.