Limit Foreign Aid to Pro-Abortion and Gender Ideology Groups

The American Council supports SB4873, the Promoting Human Flourishing in Foreign Assistance Act, and we call on every member of the Senate to vote for its passage. American taxpayers deserve to know that their foreign assistance dollars are directed toward genuine human development, not toward ideological agendas that contradict widely held moral convictions about life, sex, and equal dignity. This bill delivers that assurance in enforceable statutory form.

At the core of the bill is a straightforward condition: foreign and domestic NGOs, international organizations, and where the Secretary of State chooses, foreign governments, must agree as a condition of receiving nonmilitary foreign assistance that they will not provide or promote abortion outside the United States and will not fund other organizations that do so. The bill defines abortion with precision, and it expressly protects medically necessary interventions, including care when a physician certifies a woman's life is endangered and treatment for ectopic pregnancy. No woman's emergency care is jeopardized by this legislation. We believe that is the right balance, and we urge the Senate to enshrine it in law.

The bill also requires recipients to agree not to promote what it defines as gender ideology, including the provision or promotion of sex-rejecting procedures or social transitions outside the United States, and to maintain physical and financial separation between funded programs and any such activities. These restrictions extend through the full chain of implementing partners to every subrecipient. When American foreign assistance travels through layers of contractors and grantees, accountability must travel with it. SB4873 closes that gap.

On equal dignity, the bill prohibits recipients from promoting discriminatory equity ideology, defined as treating individuals as members of preferred or disfavored groups rather than as individuals, and from engaging in unlawful DEI-related discrimination. Importantly, the bill explicitly protects religious organizations' hiring of coreligionists and carves out prenatal and postnatal care screening programs. Personal actions taken by individuals off-duty and without organizational endorsement are also shielded from being attributed to their employer. These thoughtful carve-outs reflect genuine care for conscience and for those most in need of health services.

The bill is balanced by two important structural safeguards. The Secretary of State retains authority to waive any provision upon certified findings that the waiver serves national security or foreign policy interests, that the partner is the sole available provider, that the waiver is narrowly tailored, and that the partner made a good-faith compliance effort. And a rule of construction requires that every provision affecting U.S. NGOs be interpreted consistently with the First Amendment. These features make the bill durable, legally sound, and responsive to genuine field realities without surrendering its principled core.

The American Council calls on the Senate and the Committee on Foreign Relations to move SB4873 forward without delay. Foreign assistance is a powerful expression of American values. This bill ensures those values include respect for unborn life, fidelity to biological reality, and the equal dignity of every individual. We ask you to stand with us and pass this bill.