New York Times: “Don’t the lives of women and girls matter?”
Washington, D.C. – In his opinion column earlier this week, New York Times reporter Nicholas Kristof posed a simple question: “Don’t the lives of women and girls matter?”
With President Trump likely to cut all U.S. government funding to UNFPA, the United Nations Sexual and Reproductive health agency, shortly after taking office, Kristof interviewed some of the women and girls who would be directly impacted if funding for UNFPA’s lifesaving work stopped. Lydia, a cervical cancer survivor he met at a UNFPA clinic, shared:
“If this clinic didn’t exist, I would have just waited to die. It saved my life.“
Annick, a high school senior who came to the clinic to receive her first injectable contraceptive said:
“I’ve wanted family planning a long time. If this clinic didn’t exist, I think I would get pregnant. I wouldn’t achieve my dreams.“
She also told Kristof that five of her classmates had already become pregnant and dropped out of school.
Kristof also spoke with Linah. Below is an excerpt from the column about her life:
“In a slum in the capital, Antananarivo, I visited a mobile clinic that provides free contraception, cervical cancer screenings and treatment for sexually transmitted infections. The clinic is a lifeline for women like Linah Ravaosoloarimalala, 25, who has three children and wants to stop there. She is homeless, living in a market and has neither the money to pay for contraception nor the ability to stop procreating.‘When my husband is drunk, he comes to me and forces me to have sex,’ she said quietly. ‘If I say I want family planning, he beats me.‘ The advantage of contraceptive shots is that a violent partner doesn’t have to know about them, and she was able to get one in the mobile clinic. But that option may not be possible after Trump takes office.“
Throughout the article, Kristof asserts that UNFPA’s lifesaving sexual and reproductive healthcare should not be politicized – and that by seeking to defund our work, many women and girls such as the three Kristof interviewed will be put in grave danger.
After the article came out Senator Jeanne Shaheen came out in support of our work, calling U.S. funding a “lifeline for women and families.” Congresswoman Lois Frankel also showed her support for our lifesaving work, stating that “Slashing funding for women’s health organizations like UNFPA would only lead to more death and hardship for the world’s most vulnerable women and girls.”
Kristof expressed a similar view in his piece, stating:
“But I hope that administration officials will understand that if they cut off funding for UNFPA and for women’s health organizations like MSI, this will not be an ideological triumph of one American political faction but the death knell for women and girls just like their own mothers, sisters, wives and daughters.”
Read the full New York Times article by Nicholas Kristof here and read our statement on the 2024 election results here.
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