Transcript
The national medical advisor at Family Panning New Zealand, Dr Christine Roke, says ironically, President Trump's move will increase abortions globally.
"The problem is that most organisations that have anything to do with discussing abortions are also providing contraception. In practice this means there is less funding for contraception. When there's less funding for contraception, as was shown when the global gag rule was there before, then there are more unintended pregnancies and the abortion rate tends to go up not down because women are having to deal with an unintended pregnancy."
Family Panning New Zealand is currently supporting services in Kiribati which won't be affected by President Trump's decision.
The International family planning organisation, Marie Stopes, says much of its work in the Pacific is funded by New Zealand and Australia, although it stands to lose 30 million dollars a year from the US.
The regional director of Marie Stopes in Australia, Chris Turner, says the Mexico City Policy will have a devastating affect on the health of women world wide.
"We anticipate that if the policy is left in place for a four year republican term 6.5 million unitended pregnancies that would have been prevented by contraception. This would translate to approximately 2.2 million abortions and we can estimate based on the health data that that would lead to 21,700 maternal deaths."
The International Planned Parenthood Federation stands to lose a hundred million dollars of funding from the US.
It's resource director Matthew Lindley told the ABC the cost will be borne by women in the the developing world.
"In denying access to these funds, IPPF and other organisations like us won't be able to deliver a comprehensive range of other reproductive health, HIV, maternal child health services to women who particularly need them. We know that the health consequences for some of the poorest women in the world of not having access to these services is particularly dire."
Family Panning New Zealand's Christine Roke says women in the Pacific will suffer.
"There are many programmes in the Pacific that are funded basically from US funding and they may be compromised, not able to provide the same contraception. That will be a disaster for women not being able to access contraception."
Dr Roke says in Pacific countries where abortions are illegal more women will turn to unsafe abortions which often lead to long term injury and death.
This is Ben Robinson Drawbridge.
