{"id":31854,"date":"2025-07-15T18:14:18","date_gmt":"2025-07-15T18:14:18","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/medexperts.pro\/?p=31854"},"modified":"2025-07-15T18:24:10","modified_gmt":"2025-07-15T18:24:10","slug":"trump-official-accused-pepfar-of-funding-abortions-in-russia-it-wasnt-true","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/medexperts.pro\/?p=31854","title":{"rendered":"Trump Official Accused PEPFAR of Funding Abortions in Russia. It Wasn\u2019t True."},"content":{"rendered":"
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PEPFAR, the AIDS relief program, hasn\u2019t operated in Russia since 2012 and does not fund abortions.<\/p>\n

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It was a startling, almost unbelievable, allegation. It turned out to be untrue.<\/p>\n

On June 25, Russell Vought, the director of the Office of Management and Budget, told a Senate committee<\/a> that the President\u2019s Emergency Plan for AIDS Relief, known as PEPFAR, had spent $9.3 million \u201cto advise Russian doctors on how to perform abortions and gender analysis.\u201d<\/p>\n

His statements had immediate consequences for the committee\u2019s vote and had the potential to create long-term damage to PEPFAR, a program that has long had bipartisan support and has been estimated to have saved 26 million lives since President George W. Bush started it in 2003.<\/p>\n

Mr. Vought was at the Senate Appropriations Committee to defend a package of cuts proposed by the Trump administration to this year\u2019s spending on global health programs and public broadcasting. If the Senate votes to approve the package, global health programs will lose $900 million, including $400 million from PEPFAR for the current fiscal year. PEPFAR and other programs also face huge cuts, even terminations, for the coming fiscal year. The full Senate is expected to vote on the \u201crescissions bill\u201d by Thursday.<\/p>\n

At the hearing, Mr. Vought listed funding of abortions in Russia as evidence of PEPFAR\u2019s waste of government funds. The example prompted Senator Lindsey Graham, Republican of South Carolina and a longtime supporter of PEPFAR, to say he would vote in favor of rescinding funds from the program.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n

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\u201cYou know why I\u2019m going to vote for it? Just as a statement that PEPFAR is important, but it\u2019s not beyond scrutiny,\u201d Mr. Graham said. \u201cThere is a consequence to this crap.\u201d<\/p>\n

PEPFAR has not operated in Russia since 2012, when President Vladimir Putin kicked the United States Agency for International Development out of the country. U.S. law prohibits the use of any federal funds to pay for abortions. Funding abortions through PEPFAR would imply not just waste, but serious crimes or negligence, or both.<\/p>\n

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PEPFAR, the AIDS relief program, hasn\u2019t operated in Russia since 2012 and does not fund abortions.It was a startling, almost unbelievable, allegation. It turned out to be untrue.On June 25, Russell Vought, the director of the Office of Management and Budget, told a Senate committee that the President\u2019s Emergency Plan for AIDS Relief, known as PEPFAR, had spent $9.3 million \u201cto advise Russian doctors on how to perform abortions and gender analysis.\u201dHis statements had immediate consequences for the committee\u2019s vote and had the potential to create long-term damage to PEPFAR, a program that has long had bipartisan support and has been estimated to have saved 26 million lives since President George W. Bush started it in 2003.Mr. Vought was at the Senate Appropriations Committee to defend a package of cuts proposed by the Trump administration to this year\u2019s spending on global health programs and public broadcasting. If the Senate votes to approve the package, global health programs will lose $900 million, including $400 million from PEPFAR for the current fiscal year. PEPFAR and other programs also face huge cuts, even terminations, for the coming fiscal year. The full Senate is expected to vote on the \u201crescissions bill\u201d by Thursday.At the hearing, Mr. Vought listed funding of abortions in Russia as evidence of PEPFAR\u2019s waste of government funds. The example prompted Senator Lindsey Graham, Republican of South Carolina and a longtime supporter of PEPFAR, to say he would vote in favor of rescinding funds from the program.\u201cYou know why I\u2019m going to vote for it? Just as a statement that PEPFAR is important, but it\u2019s not beyond scrutiny,\u201d Mr. Graham said. \u201cThere is a consequence to this crap.\u201dPEPFAR has not operated in Russia since 2012, when President Vladimir Putin kicked the United States Agency for International Development out of the country. U.S. law prohibits the use of any federal funds to pay for abortions. Funding abortions through PEPFAR would imply not just waste, but serious crimes or negligence, or both.We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and\u00a0log into\u00a0your Times account, or\u00a0subscribe\u00a0for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber?\u00a0Log in.Want all of The Times?\u00a0Subscribe.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":31856,"comment_status":"close","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[33],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-31854","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-health"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/medexperts.pro\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/31854","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/medexperts.pro\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/medexperts.pro\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/medexperts.pro\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/medexperts.pro\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=31854"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"http:\/\/medexperts.pro\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/31854\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":31857,"href":"http:\/\/medexperts.pro\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/31854\/revisions\/31857"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/medexperts.pro\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/31856"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/medexperts.pro\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=31854"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/medexperts.pro\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=31854"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/medexperts.pro\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=31854"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}