Cafod says it will not challenge Government over abortion funding

The Catholic bishops’ overseas aid agency Cafod will not discourage the Government from plugging a funding gap, after US President Donald Trump prohibited American taxpayers’ money from supporting any foreign aid group that mentions the option of abortion.

The Department for International Development (DfID) is to host a conference in July aimed at raising the money to cover the services that could be affected by Mr Trump’s executive order, namely the provision of contraceptives and sex education. Human Rights Watch and a group of Labour MPs have urged Britain to help make up the funding shortfall.

DfID is the second biggest bilateral donor of family planning aid and has doubled its spending on the issue since 2010.

Cafod’s head of advocacy, Neil Thorns, told The Tablet: “It’s not something we particularly have a view on … Church teaching says that’s not what we support, so we don’t go there. It would seem odd for us to say something to DfID about something we essentially don’t have a conversation about.”

The charity works with the department on issues such as disaster response and improving access to water, but not on projects involving artificial birth control or abortion, because of its adherence to church teaching.

Asked whether Cafod was urging DfID not to supply the extra funding, Mr Thorns said: “It’s a sensitive relationship we have with DfID on this issue … They respect what we do and we understand they have a different view. Telling them what to do doesn’t feel quite right in that relationship. It’s potentially more up for the Catholic Church as a body … to be talking to the UK Government.”

Why would we be talking to DfID and not talking to the National Health Service?” he asked, referring to NHS provision of abortions and contraceptives with taxpayers’ money.

However, Mr Thorns said that there was “95 per cent” overlap between DfID’s work on reproductive health and Cafod’s, enabling them to “work very constructively together”.