8,000 pregnant women may die in just 90 days because of US aid cuts

On February 18, Trump signed an executive order that seeks to make IVF more accessible to people in the US. In some ways, the move isn’t surprising—Trump has expressed his support for the technology in the past, and even called himself “the father of IVF” while on the campaign trail last year. Making IVF more affordable and accessible should give people more options when it comes to family planning and reproductive freedom more generally. But the move comes after a barrage of actions by the new administration that are hitting reproductive care hard for people around the world. On January 20, his first day in office, Trump ordered a “90-day pause in United States foreign development assistance” for such programs to be assessed. By January 24, a “stop work” memo issued by the State Department brought US-funded aid programs around the world to a halt. Recent estimates suggest that more than 8,000 women will die from complications related to pregnancy and childbirth over the next 90 days ... Read full article.