Trump’s Foreign Aid Cuts Are Ruining Ethiopia’s Progress on Maternal Mortality
And enabling the country's anti-abortion movement.
Photo: iStockphoto Politics
Since January, Donald Trump has–surprise!–inflicted an innumerable amount of devastation on reproductive rights and maternal health. If you’re a regular Jezebel reader, you know this is nothing new. But a new report by the Independent reveals the wickedness isn’t just barbaric–it’s global.
The article focuses on Ethiopia, how it once “won the battle against its maternal deaths crisis,” and well, how Trump’s foreign aid cuts might just ruin the progress. In 2005, the country repealed its draconian abortion ban, which only permitted the procedure to save the mother’s life or her health (sound familiar?). In the two decades since, abortion has been legal in cases of rape, incest, fetal abnormalities, among other exceptions. The progress thereafter was significant. A paper published in May 2024 revealed that during the first 20 years of the 21st century, the country had slashed its maternal death rate by 72% and neonatal death rate by 44%—an impressive feat compared to other governments in sub-Saharan Africa.
But between canceling 83% of USAID programs in March and slashing away billions of aid through the One Big Beautiful (I-am-so-sick-and-tired-of-this) Bill, legislators have essentially deserted aid organizations around the world and left thousands to cope without life-saving treatments. For Ethiopia, one of the largest beneficiaries of U.S. aid dollars, it has also meant shutting down healthcare providers.