Trump Administration Plans to Burn $9.7 Million in Contraceptive Medicines and Devices

According to a report in today's N.Y. Times (see also NPR and Reuters), the Trump Administration is poised to destroy nearly $10 million in birth control pills, IUDs, and hormonal implants that had already been paid for by AID. The contraceptives "were destined for clinics in the poorest countries in Africa" but were warehoused in April when AID was shut down. 

Diverting these reproductive health supplies will have a devastating effect:

Siobhan Perkins, who was the procurement adviser for the U.S.A.I.D. contraception supply chain, said the products slated for destruction were enough to prevent approximately 362,000 unintended pregnancies, 110,000 unsafe abortions and 718 maternal deaths.

Destruction of the contraceptives will cost $160,000 in transportation and incineration charges, but -- as reported by Reuters -- there's a low-cost option that, with any other administration, would be a win-win solution:

Sarah Shaw, Associate Director of Advocacy at MSI Reproductive Choices, told Reuters the non-profit organisation had volunteered to pay for the supplies to be repackaged without USAID branding and shipped to countries in need, but the offer was declined by the U.S. government.

"MSI offered to pay for repackaging, shipping and import duties but they were not open to that... We were told that the U.S. government would only sell the supplies at the full market value," said Shaw.

She did not elaborate on how much the NGO was prepared to pay, but said she felt the rejection was based on the Trump's administration's more restrictive stance on abortion and family planning.

"This is clearly not about saving money. It feels more like an ideological assault on reproductive rights, and one that is already harming women."

This decision is part of a war on women's health that is, in economic terms, stupid and, in moral terms, evil. How much lower can this crowd go?