by Adam James Pollock, UnHerd
On Thursday, the Foreign, Commonwealth & Development Office revealed that it would be making new funding available for international programmes “to help millions of women gain greater choice over pregnancy”.
The announcement promised an eye-watering £254 million of Government (read: taxpayer) funding for the CHOICES programme, which provides abortions and contraceptives to women in countries including Afghanistan, Chad, The Gambia, Malawi, Sudan, and Yemen. According to the FCDO, this funding could avert in the region of 14 million unintended pregnancies by 2028. It is unclear from the announcement what proportion of this vast number comes from abortion or contraception.
Alice Macdonald, who currently serves as Bridget Phillipson’s Parliamentary Private Secretary at the Office for Equality and Opportunity, argued that such a move “makes economic sense”. She pointed to information provided by the United Nations Population Fund, which claims that a $79 billion investment in abortion and contraception globally could yield $660 billion in economic benefits by 2050, mainly through making women more active in the workforce. It may make economic sense for the countries in Africa and the Middle East which are on the receiving end of such funding, but it cannot reasonably be stated that such an “investment” is financially sensible for citizens of the United Kingdom.
On the same day, another announcement from the FCDO received substantially more media coverage, offering a further £88 million in funding for humanitarian aid in Palestine, which is to include providing mental health services. This new funding is part of a total of £127 million allocated to the Palestinian territories in the UK’s Official Development Assistance budget for 2026-27.