One of the Trump administration’s very first acts on Monday was to reinstate the Mexico City policy, otherwise known as the global gag rule. The policy prevents giving U.S. funding to international organizations that offer family planning and reproductive health options to women around the world—if those options include talking to women about abortion.
Yes, you read that correctly—it wasn’t a typo. These organizations are not allowed to talk to women about abortion as an option. Not perform them. Not fund them. They aren’t even permitted to talk about them. They cannot give medical advice about them or give referrals, even if abortion is legal in their respective countries.
“It’s a pure political giveaway at the expense of some of the world’s most vulnerable women,” said Aram Schvey, senior policy counsel and manager of special projects at the Center for Reproductive Rights.
Let’s take a step back to understand the facts here and why this is problematic. Certainly, there are wide-ranging opinions about abortion that are all valid and that encompass social, moral, and religious beliefs. But facts matter. And the fact is that U.S. money does not go toward funding abortions internationally. AT ALL.
US foreign aid has never been used to pay for abortions as a method of family planning. That’s illegal, under the 1973 Hyde Amendment, which is a US law applied to every administration, and not an executive order that presidents can repeal or replace at will.
So if that’s the case then why is this administration, in its first few days, so hellbent on limiting women’s access to choice that they would reinstate this antiquated policy that will negatively impact so many women? Would someone please tell Trump and his ilk that if they are so opposed to abortion they are always free to choose not to have one?
MSI estimates there will be an additional 2.2 million abortions globally each year — 2.1 million of which will be unsafe, Newman-Williams said.
“The death rate both from maternal mortality because of more pregnancies and from those seeking unsafe abortion is going to rise quite dramatically,” said Marjorie Newman-Williams, vice president and director of international operations for MSI.
The World Health Organization (WHO) estimates that unsafe abortion causes 13% of maternal deaths globally.
Experts (aka those who actually know something about women’s bodies and work on behalf of women’s reproductive health rights) say that this is an outdated policy, first enacted in 1984 under Ronald Reagan. And Reagan, the same president who removed ERA support from the Republican Party platform in 1980 and who made the moniker “welfare queen” famous, was not exactly a champion of women’s rights.
For a country that is founded on the bedrock principles of freedom and choice, it certainly seems like we don’t want women (in this country or abroad) to have either.
Once again, it looks like the GOP wants a government so small it fits into a woman’s uterus.