Laleh, a midwife in Herat, Afghanistan, delivered a baby on the side of a road. The mother was riding to the hospital on the back of her husband’s motorcycle and realized she was not going to make it there in time.

As reported by PBS News, Laleh’s work had operated through a mobile clinic of the International Rescue Committee, which helped many people living in rural Afghanistan. Eighty percent of this work was supported by the United States Agency for International Development (USAID), but after the funding cuts to USAID last year, the clinic could not sustain itself and closed this spring.

These clinics were the primary way most women and children accessed healthcare, as their options were limited by Taliban policy. Since 2022, the Taliban have required women and children to have mahrams, a male chaperone from their family, accompanying them through even the most critical crises.

The policy also caused an overall shortage of health workers, since women could not work in medical positions. Laleh describes watching the Taliban turn down a midwife who was taking care of a pregnant mother because she didn’t have a mahram, resulting in the death of that mother and the baby. The mobile clinics offered a life-saving workaround for this policy, enabling millions to get urgent medical care.

After the International Rescue Committee (IRC) lost its funding from USAID, the organization didn’t have the means to keep its clinics afloat. Since the clinics in Herat closed, the institutional maternal mortality ratio within the area increased almost five-fold within the first six months of 2026 (+109%).

Despite claims that the shutdown of USAID has not resulted in any deaths, Refugees International documented at least 161 high-confidence, preventable maternal and neo-natal deaths in Afghanistan following the withdrawal of U.S. assistance. Laleh, along with two-thirds of the midwives surveyed, lost their jobs and could not continue their work due to the USAID cuts.

The Trump administration withdrew funding to USAID under the pretense that its programs were wasteful and inefficient. In Afghanistan, programs like the IRC were the lifeblood of rural access to healthcare, especially for mothers and children. Meanwhile, the entirety of funding for USAID in 2024 was less than half a percent of the federal budget, covering programs like this in Afghanistan as well as life-saving health and humanitarian efforts in dozens of other countries. After last year’s cuts, nearly 500 clinics in Afghanistan closed, while an additional 300 shut down earlier this year, leaving 6 million people with no local health service.

Renewing funding for programs formerly backed by USAID would not only save millions of lives, but also ensure that healthcare professionals and midwives like Laleh can continue using their skills to treat the sick and improve livelihoods across Afghanistan. A peer-reviewed study from ISGlobal explains that, barring the restoration of foreign assistance, USAID cuts will result in 14 million more deaths, including 4.5 million children, by 2030.

Support the Return of Foreign Assistance

A budget line can be restored in a single appropriations cycle, but a midwife cannot. No midwives have graduated in Afghanistan in five years due to bans on education for women. Every month Congress waits is another month that the road in Herat has no one on it.

That’s why we at the Alliance for American Leadership wrote and signed the Two Penny Pledge to urge Congress to prioritize life-saving foreign assistance programs. Most Americans believe the U.S. spends 25% of its budget on foreign assistance, but this is a vast overestimate. Before the devastating cuts to USAID, foreign aid took less than 1% of the entire federal budget. The Alliance for American Leadership believes in allocating 2% of the national budget towards foreign assistance to protect our national security, bolster our global influence, and save the lives of desperate mothers and their unborn babies in places like Afghanistan. Sign the Two Penny Pledge today and join us in protecting programs around the world that support people like Laleh and their communities.