Meet FP2030: the global initiative powered by foreign aid, billionaire philanthropy, and policy pressure, all aimed at driving down fertility, particularly among the world’s poorest nations and peoples.
That’s not how it’s advertised.
FP2030 is being marketed as a “rights-based, empowering, and voluntary” program. It comes packaged with sleek infographics full of high-minded rhetoric about “choice” and “freedom.”
But when you peel back the pretty packaging, what stands revealed is a very old and very ugly reality: population control.
The initiative began following the 2012 London Summit as FP2020, and was aimed at putting 120 million women and girls in low-income countries on modern contraception by 2020.
When its elite billionaire backers fell short of this goal, they did not give up. Rather, they simply extended it another decade, rebranded their effort as FP2030, and adopted a new “rights-based” framework.
FP2030 is marketed as a step forward for women, but what’s being rolled out under the name of “women’s empowerment” often walks and talks like a fertility-reduction campaign.
Central to FP2030’s strategy is convincing governments, mostly in the Global South, to commit their countries to the program. This country-level commitment process—similar to earlier population control programs—sets a host of national targets. These include boosting contraception and abortion uptake, expanding supply chains, and reshaping access policies.
And how are governments convinced to get with the program?
It turns out that these commitments are often made as part of major foreign aid packages. FP2030’s biggest donors—the Gates Foundation, UNFPA, and formerly USAID—use large-scale funding as leverage. In order to obtain this aid, countries must publicly commit to lowering their fertility rates.
This raises a key question. Are these governments freely choosing FP2030, or are they bribed to comply?
And for all the pretty words about “choice” and “voluntarism”, some governments have been explicit about their population control motivations. Take Nigeria’s recent FP2030 recommitment, for example. A senior health official described family planning as a “key strategy for controlling the country’s population growth.”
That is not language about women’s health or autonomy. It is demographic engineering.
FP2030’s own actions confirm its real agenda. From promoting webinars on aiding abortion access in countries where it’s illegal, to their 2022 statement responding to the Dobbs decision, insisting that abortion is part of the “holistic spectrum of reproductive healthcare,” FP2030’s true priorities are evident.
Behind the polished rhetoric of “choice” lies a population control strategy and a relentless promotion of abortion. Abortion is not only included, but it is a centerpiece of this anti-people campaign.
FP2030 provides compelling evidence of what population control advocates have long sought to conceal in public forums, including official UN events. For the main actors and funders behind this initiative, abortion is a central component of what they define as “family planning” and “sexual and reproductive health.” In their narrative, abortion is presented as “a fundamental right of women and a necessary condition for their full personal development”.
Another red flag raised by FP2030 is the aggressive push for post-abortion and postpartum family planning, especially long-acting reversible contraceptives (LARCs) such as implants and injectables. These methods are promoted not necessarily because they are what women want, but because they deliver high compliance and long-term fertility suppression. These are metrics that look good in donor reports.
Add to these “advantages” is the fact that, in many low-resource settings, LARCs can be administered immediately after abortion procedures, often before women have fully recovered or had a chance to consider their options. This raises serious concerns about informed consent and reproductive autonomy.
Those organizations funding this so-called global partnership have clear agendas. The Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, which has pledged $1.4 billion to FP2030, alongside other organizations such as the Packard and Hewlett Foundations, has deep historical ties to population control efforts dating back decades. UNFPA, another key FP2030 partner, has faced past scrutiny for cooperating with coercive birth policies in countries like China.
When these players pour billions into fertility-reduction campaigns while waving the banner of women’s rights, it is fair to question their true motives.
FP2030 leaders frequently invoke the language of dignity, health, and gender equality. But the pressure to show results, especially numerical ones, can lead programs to prioritize performance metrics over a desire to aid countries in need. If funding is tied to contraceptive uptake, then uptake, not informed choice, becomes the goal.
The initiative positions itself as a tool to help achieve the UN’s Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs), especially those related to health, gender equity, and poverty alleviation. But embedded in that framework is a dangerous belief: that reducing fertility, especially in poorer nations, is essential to progress.
One of FP2030‘s essays put it plainly: “The discourse on family planning has traveled from the very narrow confines of ‘population control’… to emerge as one of the bulwarks on which rests the edifice of sustainable development… and even climate change.”
This is simply population control dressed in modern language.
FP2030 is not about asking women what they want. It is about managing fertility to meet development targets. For donors, fewer births in Africa and South Asia mean more manageable populations and smoother implementation of their global development agendas. For governments, signing on to fertility reduction goals means access to tens of millions in aid.
That is not empowerment. That is social engineering by economic and political elites.
There is no way to separate FP2030 from its true objective: reducing population under the guise of progress. The language may have changed—from “population control” to “rights-based family planning”—but the intent remains the same. This is not about helping women. It is about hitting demographic targets set by global elites.
As pro-lifers, we must see this clearly. No campaign to reduce fertility, no matter how gently it speaks, can ever serve the dignity of the human person. These programs do not uplift women. They reduce them to statistics and view fertility as a burden, not a gift. We must reject every attempt to repackage contraception and abortion as compassion. Because what is being offered here is not freedom.
It is control.
