![]() ![]() Over the past four years, there have been reports of women drinking battery acid or using sticks or wire clothes hangers to abort. Even without the gag rule, an estimated 7 million women in low-income countries are admitted to hospital as a result of unsafe abortions each year. Health advocates say the policy does not reduce abortion. But researchers who studied 26 countries in sub-Saharan Africa during the administrations of Bill Clinton, George W Bush and Barack Obama found that when the gag rule was imposed abortion rates increased by about 40%, contraception use fell by 14% and pregnancies rose by 12%. The full impact of the vastly expanded policy may not be known for some time. The Protecting Life in Global Health Assistance policy has affected up to $12bn in health funding. It also prevents NGOs from supporting other groups that provide abortion services. This included HIV, malaria, water and sanitation, and nutrition programmes. The policy – which is traditionally rescinded by Democrats and reintroduced by Republicans – usually targets family planning programmes funded by the US Agency for International Development (USAid).īut under Donald Trump it was expanded to cover all bilateral health funding, administered by all departments or agencies. The policy prohibits overseas NGOs that receive US funding from using money sourced elsewhere to undertake any work related to abortion. In January 2017, the Trump administration reintroduced the Mexico City policy – known as the “global gag rule”. We were in the process of renewing our contracts … when we were told by PPG that they were not able to give us funding.” The organisation went from seeing 300,000 women and girls a year to just 150,000 over two years – thanks only to money secured through the SheDecides movement. Foetuses were found on riverbanks, Munyasia says. Teenage pregnancies increased, and women resorted to unsafe abortions. Thousands of women couldn’t get contraceptives, HIV tests or cancer screening. Munyasia had to stop outreach programmes to marginalised communities and halt the training of more than 500 health workers. ![]() All of its funding came from the US, via Planned Parenthood Global (PPG), which had refused to sign the global gag order. The policy had an immediate and devastating impact on Munyasia’s organisation. Under Trump, the policy was expanded to cover almost all US bilateral aid for global health, affecting as much as $12bn (£8.9m) in funding. The policy – usually rescinded by the Democrats and reintroduced by Republicans – has affected global family planning since it was introduced in 1984. In 2017, the US president used an executive order to reinstate the Mexico City policy (also known as the “global gag rule”), which prohibits overseas organisations that receive US funding from using money from another source to do abortion-related work. This put the network in the sights of Donald Trump’s administration. Munyasia is executive director of Reproductive Health Network Kenya (RHNK), which promotes health services, including offering information about abortion. ![]()
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