The destruction process is expected to cost taxpayers more than $160,000.
The Trump administration’s decision to incinerate millions of dollars’ worth of contraceptives stored in Belgium destined for African nations under a now defunt USAID initiative is prompting urgent discussions among European governments seeking to stop the move.
The supplies, which include birth control pills, intrauterine devices, and hormonal implants, have been sitting in a warehouse in Geel, Belgium, since the United States Agency for International Development (USAID) was dismantled earlier this year. They were originally purchased for health clinics in some of Africa’s poorest nations.
According to US officials, the government has made a preliminary decision to destroy the stock, which it claims includes “abortifacient” products. The New York Times claims that none of the items in the Belgian storage meet that definition, and US law prohibited USAID from buying such products.
The destruction process is expected to cost taxpayers more than $160,000. The total dollar-value of the contraceptives to be destroyred is estimated at $9.7 million.
European governments, including Belgium and France, have been working to determine whether the contraceptives have already left the warehouse or if there is still time to block the plan. Belgium’s foreign ministry said it is “exploring all possible avenues to prevent the destruction of these stocks, including their temporary relocation.”
Aid organizations say the products are still needed in low-income countries: “It’s just egregious that they’re willing to waste $9 million worth of contraceptives that are so desperately needed,” said Sarah Shaw, associate director of advocacy at MSI Reproductive Choices. “Women are going to die because they’ve not had access to those contraceptives,” she claimed.
The nonprofit MSI and the UN Population Fund both offered to take over storage and distribution at no cost to the US government, but those proposals were both denied. The UN agency said attempts to purchase the contraceptives earlier this year fell through when deadlines passed without a response from the US side.
Siobhan Perkins, a former USAID procurement adviser, estimated that the stock could have prevented more than 362,000 unintended pregnancies, 110,000 potentially dangerous abortions, and over 700 maternal deaths. Shaw noted the supplies could have met Senegal’s contraceptive needs for three years and still had several years of shelf life remaining.
Officials in Brussels and Paris say they have not given up efforts to save the stock, but so far, negotiations with Washington have not produced a solution.
