On Monday, the State Department informed the Senate that the Trump administration would cut all U.S. funding to UNFPA, the United Nations Population Fund, which received about $69 million from the U.S. last year and more than $75 million in 2015. This cut will create a major obstacle to the work of UNFPA, the U.N.’s primary supporter of contraceptive access, safe childbirth, gender-based violence response, and advocacy against abusive practices like child marriage and female genital mutilation around the world. With a presence in more than 150 countries, many of which get no direct U.S. aid, UNFPA is one of the largest contributors to the health and rights of women on the planet.

The action came via the Trump administration’s interpretation of the Kemp-Kasten Amendment, a rider that prohibits U.S. funding of any organization that “support[s] or participate[s] in the management of a program of coercive abortion or involuntary sterilization.” The amendment has been added to appropriations legislation every year since 1985. Since then, every Republican administration has used it to cut U.S. funding from UNFPA. Every Democratic administration has reinterpreted the amendment to restore UNFPA funding.

Founded in part with a large U.S. donation in 1969, UNFPA is the only organization that has ever been affected by this amendment. Right-wing lawmakers have argued that UNFPA’s presence in China means it helps enforce China’s now-relaxed one-child policy through coercive means. This is not true. A State Department investigation commissioned by George W. Bush found “no evidence that UNFPA has supported or participated in the management of a program of coercive abortion or involuntary sterilization in China.” Bush defunded the agency anyway. And in spite of the broad successes UNFPA-funded programs have seen in areas with some of the worst indicators of women’s health, the Trump administration is doing the same.

Image: International year of the World’s Indigenous People, 1993. A Cakchiquel family in the hamlet of Patzutzun, Guatemala. 27 June 1993. Guatemala. UN Photo/F. Charton.