President Biden's administration is pressuring the government of Sierra Leone to adopt more permissive abortion policies in exchange for foreign assistance, according to a Monday report.
The African nation currently bans abortion in most circumstances, but legislation before the country's parliament would decriminalize the practice. The Millennium Challenge Corporation (MCC), a U.S. government-run funding allocator, is reportedly threatening to withhold hundreds of millions in foreign assistance funding if the abortion law does not pass, a former senior U.S. government official who has worked in the region told the Daily Signal.
The MCC CEO Alice Albright signed an agreement with Sierra Leon's finance minister, Sheku Bangura, in late September. The agreement would see the country receive $480 million in foreign assistance so long as the country meets the MCC's "rigorous standards for good governance, fighting corruption and respecting democratic rights." The organization evaluates Sierra Leone's compliance with the standards on an ongoing basis.
The organization denied any effort to influence Sierra Leone's abortion policies in a statement to Fox News Digital on Tuesday.
"The Millennium Challenge Corporation is unaware of any Sierra Leonean abortion legislation and has never made any requests to the Government of Sierra Leone regarding abortion policies. Any such legislation would be an internal matter for Sierra Leone with no U.S. government developments fund made contingent on its passage," the organization said in a statement.
The office of Secretary of State Antony Blinken, who chairs the MCC's board of directors, did not respond to a request for comment.
Footage circulating on social media shows raucous pro-life protesters demonstrating inside Sierra Leone's parliament as lawmakers debated the legislation Tuesday.
Pro-life activists in the country claim that President Julius Maada Bio fired his attorney general last week because the official refused to push for the abortion law in parliament. Bio appointed Alpha Sesay as the new AG this week. Sesay is a recent former employee of USAID and has advocated for the new abortion law on social media.
Rep. Chris Smith, R-N.J., condemned reports of the pressure campaign in a Monday statement.
"It is deeply disturbing, but not terribly surprising, that we are hearing reports that the Biden administration is threatening to withhold foreign assistance to Sierra Leone unless legislators there pass the deceptively named ‘Safe Motherhood Act’ legislation that would legalize abortion in Sierra Leone, a country that currently protects unborn life," he told the Signal.
Smith has previously accused the Biden administration of "hijacking" a Bush-era program delivering AIDS relief to Africa to promote its abortion agenda.
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PEPFAR, the United States President's Emergency Plan for AIDS Relief, was launched in 2003 under President George W. Bush and has invested over $100 billion fighting AIDS across the world while saving 25 million lives and preventing millions of infections, the State Department says. PEPFAR was up for re-authorization in Congress last year.
"President Biden has hijacked PEPFAR, the $6 billion a year foreign aid program designed to mitigate HIV/AIDS in many targeted — mostly African — countries in order to promote abortion on demand," Smith told colleagues in a 2023 statement.
Smith said two groups, Population Services International (PSI) and Village Reach, have received $96.5 million and $10.1 million, respectively, over the last few years from PEPFAR under Biden, and both groups have a track record of pushing abortion.
"PSI proudly proclaims it provides abortion and lobbies to eliminate pro-life laws," Smith said. "PSI provides comprehensive abortion and post-abortion care services in nearly 20 countries throughout the world."
Fox News' Andrew Mark Miller contributed to this report
