The money will help replace what President Trump cut when he took office

OTTAWA (TIP): On International Women’s Day, March 8, Canadian prime minister Justin Trudeau announced Canada will contribute $650 million over the next three years to reproductive health and abortion-related services around the world, multiple outlets reported. The money will help fill a funding hole left when President Donald Trump signed the “global gag rule” on abortion, yanking funding from international health organizations that provide abortions or engage in abortion advocacy, even if they use their own funding for abortions, according to The Guardian.

Trudeau pledged the money for sex education and reproductive health programs, including money set aside for the abortion-related services Trump defunded. The goal, Trudeau said, is to give women access to resources that give them control over family planning.

“Like men, women should be able to choose when they want to start a family, how big their family should be, and who they want to start that family with,” Trudeau said in his announcement. “When women have equal power and equal weight and equal leadership influence, the kinds of decisions are better.”

The global gag rule was introduced by Ronald Reagan in 1984, and every Republican since then has signed on. Trump signed the rule when he took office, and while that move was fairly routine for a conservative leader, Trump expanded the rule to restrict all global health funding, not just family-planning funding, including for those organizations whose primary focus isn’t family planning but which may mention abortion, according to Slate. The rule has the potential to strip $9.5 billion in funding from international health organizations, including$600 million in family-planning funding. Trudeau’s announcement targets the family-planning funding Trump stripped away, providing an alternate source of money for the organizations.

By stripping family-planning funding, Trump is dealing a blow to reproductive health across the world, but since, according to Slate, he expanded the gag rule to include all health funding, even for those organizations whose focus is entirely different but which may mention abortion, he is endangering programs that do all kinds of things worldwide, including prevent HIV.

Giving money to women’s health organizations, Trudeau said, will empower women and therefore make for a better world all around.

“For far too many women and girls, unsafe abortions and lack of choices in reproductive health mean that they are either at risk, and at risk of death, or simply cannot contribute or achieve their potential through education, through involvement in their community, through a broad range of opportunities,” he said, according to CBC News. “It is important that as a world we recognize that empowering women, that respecting their rights, is fundamental to building a world in which everyone has a real and fair chance to succeed. “