The International Planned Parenthood Federation (IPPF)
recently published its annual performance report and its financial statements
for 2015.
IPPF’s
annual performance report for 2015 boasts (p. 14) that it provided nearly
one million abortions in 2015 alone – 531,323 surgical abortions and 433,002 medical
abortions, a total of 964,325.
The report also states (p. 5) that IPPF contributed to 22
policy or legislative changes that increased access to abortion.
IPPF’s
financial statements for 2015 declare a total income of $116.221 million.
Of this total income $6.142 million was provided by Australia from its scarce
overseas assistance development funds (p. 32). This represents 7.81 % of the funding
IPPF got from governments in 2015 and 5.28% of IPPF’s total income for 2015.
Australian taxpayers effectively funded 50,916 abortions
provided by IPPF in 2015.
The IPPF’s new 2016-2022
Strategic Framework aims (p. 9) to continue to “scale up the provision of an essential package of high
quality sexual and reproductive health services that are rights-based,
client-centred, gender sensitive and youth friendly”. IPPF considers the provision of surgical and/or
medical abortion as an important component of its “integrated package of essential
services”.
Prior to the prorogation of the Commonwealth Parliament for
the July 2 election, the Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade was engaged in
negotiations with the International Planned Parenthood Federation (IPPF) for a
contract in which Australia would use scarce overseas assistance funds to
provide core funding over three years (2016-2018) to IPPF, the largest provider
of surgical and medical abortions in the world.
In answers
to questions from retiring Senator Joe Bullock (Labor, WA) the Department
of Foreign Affairs and Trade continued to offer bland assurances that
Australian funds are not being used by IPPF to provide sex selection abortions,
coerced abortions or abortions after 20 weeks of pregnancy. However both the
China Family Planning Association and the Vietnam Family Planning Association,
which support and implement their respective governments’ coercive, punitive
family planning laws, are recipients of unrestricted funds from IPPF.
In these countries, as well as in India and Nepal, the two
leading recipients of unrestricted IPPF funds, sex selection abortion is rife to
the extent of seriously distorting the sex ratio at birth. It is naïve for the
Australian government to rely on IPPF’s assurances that its members associations
are not performing sex selection abortions, coerced abortions or abortions
after 20 weeks of pregnancy.
The Turnbull government significantly reduced its commitment
to overseas development assistance in the May 2016 budget. It is unconscionable
that a single dollar of scarce overseas aid from our taxes should be spent on
funding IPPF to kill unborn children and to advocate for even more killing of
the unborn.
If the Turnbull government goes ahead with its plan to fund IPPF’s
strategic plan to provide even more abortions over the next three years we will
be assisting this international abortion giant towards its goal of eliminating
over one million children each year.
