By Charlotte Van Campenhout
BRUSSELS (Reuters) -The International Planned Parenthood Federation (IPPF) on Friday condemned a plan to incinerate U.S.-funded contraceptives worth nearly $10 million in France, a move reported by Reuters earlier this week.
The supplies, including contraceptive implants and pills, have been sitting for months in a warehouse in Geel, a city in Belgium’s Antwerp province, after President Donald Trump froze U.S. foreign aid in January. They are now being sent to France for destruction.
IPPF called on the French, Belgian and U.S. governments to find a way to save the contraceptives, and on the French company that would be responsible for the destruction “to reconsider its role”.
“This is an intentional act of reproductive coercion,” it said in a statement.
Washington has previously said it did not want any USAID-branded supplies, like the ones in Belgium, to be rerouted elsewhere.
A source with knowledge of the issue told Reuters that the Trump administration was acting in accordance with the Mexico City policy, an anti-abortion pact in which Trump reinstated U.S. participation in January.
The State Department also told Reuters that related concerns about the end-destination of the contraceptives were factors in the decision.
The IPPF said it had offered to collect the products, transport and repack them and to distribute the products onwards to women in need across the globe – “all at no cost to the US government” – but that the offer was rejected by the U.S. government.
(Reporting by Charlotte Van Campenhout; Editing by Toby Chopra)
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