US cites abortion provision in cutting off UN agency funding

WASHINGTON — The Trump administration is cutting off U.S. funding to the United Nations agency for reproductive health under an abortion-related provision in a law that Democratic and Republican administrations have used as a cudgel in the global culture wars.

The U.N. Population Fund will lose $32.5 million in funding from the 2017 budget, the State Department said, with funds shifted to similar programs at the U.S. Agency for International Development.

The administration accused the agency, through its work with China’s government, of supporting population control programs in China that include coercive abortion.

By halting assistance to the U.N. Population Fund, the Trump administration is following through on promises to let socially conservative policies that President Trump embraced in his campaign determine the way the U.S. government operates and conducts itself in the world.

In a shift from former President Barack Obama’s approach, Trump has avoided elevating human rights concerns in diplomacy, with White House officials saying those issues are most effectively advanced by raising them with foreign leaders in private.

The U.N. agency’s mission involves promoting universal access to family planning and reproductive health, with a goal of reducing maternal deaths and practices like female genital mutilation.