On September 30th, the President's Emergency Plan for AIDS Relief — also known as PEPFAR — will run out of money. Credited with saving 25 million lives since its inception in 2003, the PEPFAR program has been reauthorized without issue for twenty years, but now it's in serious jeopardy thanks to Republican extremism.
GOP radicals are falsely arguing the some of PEPFAR's $7 billion annual budget goes to abortion providers and are refusing to renew the program unless the Biden admin restores the anti-abortion restrictions that they lifted in 2021. Those restrictions would block groups that receive PEPFAR money from using other sources of money to provide abortions or even discuss them as an option.
Tell Congress to renew the life-saving PEPFAR program!
"It's not unlike the debt ceiling, when we're constantly holding people hostage. The successful treatment of HIV/AIDS depends on people staying on medicines for life. And so the idea that this would be put back into this political sphere over and over again is just maddening," said Dr. Joia Mukherjee, chief medical officer for the Partners in Health international relief group.
Few projects have had as big an effect or saved as many lives as the PEPFAR program have, and it is appalling to see the so-called "pro-life" extremists use this live-saving program as a hostage in their relentless crusade to curtail women's reproductive rights and control their bodies.
Stop Republicans from killing America's life-saving AIDS program!
