In a written statement Obama said that during the past two terms of former President George W. Bush, Global Gag Rule has "undermined efforts to promote safe and effective voluntary family planning in developing countries. For these reasons, it is right for us to rescind this policy and restore critical efforts to protect and empower women and promote global economic development." He added that assistance for international family planning "has been used as a political wedge issue, the subject of back-and-forth debate that has served only to divide us. I have no desire to continue this stale and fruitless debate." |MORE
Can we say "Yes, we did!"?
Learn more about the Mexico City Policy and read remarks by President Obama and Secretary of State Hillary Clinton on the repeal of the policy.
The global gag rule—also known as the Mexico City policy—prohibited overseas organizations from receiving U.S. family planning assistance if they used their non-U.S. funds to provide abortion information, services or counseling, or engaged in any abortion rights advocacy.
Tragically, the policy may have only increased the need for abortions (most of them unsafe) by reducing access to family planning services in many developing countries. It also created more obstacles for some of the world’s poorest women seeking information about how to avoid unsafe abortions. The global gag rule was first imposed by President Reagan in 1984, rescinded by President Clinton in 1993 and then reinstated by President Bush in 2001. |MORE
Watch Planned Parenthood's video extolling the recission of the Global Gag Rule.
In Future Choices' January 2009 episode, "Lifting the Global Gag," EngenderHealth's Dr. Isaiah Ndong provides real life examples of the tragedies he witnessed in Ghana when President G.W. Bush re-imposed the Global Gag Rule in 2001.
Watch Dr. Ndong on Future Choices online - part 1 ; part 2; and part 3.
For Kenyan Women, Repeal of the Global Gag Rule Means Safety and Health
It was a beautiful day, and everybody was excited...the man who was born of a Kenyan father had decided to lift the global gag rule. In doing so he had helped to save his sisters, mothers and aunts back in Africa. Tears streamed down so many eyes as it started sinking in that it was actually true: the gag rule had been lifted... |MORE
What is/was the Global Gag Rule?
The global gag rule (also known as the Mexico City Policy) is an executive order, issued by
President George W. Bush on January 22, 2001. The gag rule restricts foreign NGOs who receive USAID family planning assistance from using their own, non-U.S. funds to:
In 2005 Future Choices aired "Bush’s Global Gag Rule: Death by Decree" in which Melissa Upreti, attorney with the Center for Reproductive Rights, explains that Bush’s Gag Rule spreads disinformation and non-democratic principles, abrogates women’s rights, causes death and destruction in the name foreign aid. |MORE
• Provide safe abortion services to the extent that they are legal (including where a woman’s
health is harmed by the pregnancy);
• Impart accurate medical counseling about, or referrals for, abortion;
• Petition their own governments to liberalize restrictive abortion laws;
• Advocate against attempts to make abortion laws even more restrictive; and
• Engage in public information initiatives and similar educational measures to ensure that
abortions are safe and accessible to the full extent that the law allows.
The 1973 Helms Amendment already prohibits U.S. funds from being used for these activities.
Through a White House memorandum dated August 29, 2003, President Bush extended the global
gag rule beyond USAID assistance to all branches of the U.S. State Department that provide
voluntary population planning assistance.
The gag rule has penalized hundreds of NGOs—and the women they serve—in nearly sixty
countries around the world. Read on:
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"Ethiopia: Women struggle, but strings bind U.S. help."
When Ethiopia's largest independent provider of family-planning services, the Family Guidance Association, refused to sign the gag rule, said Amare Bedada, its executive director, his organization lost one of its two major suppliers of contraceptives, particularly the long-acting Norplant, which is in high demand in Ethiopia. It also lost a quarter of its funding from International Planned Parenthood Federation, which also had to forfeit money from the U.S. AID. The Family Guidance Association had to shut down outreach services in rural areas, leaving women to walk 30 miles or more.
"We haven't counted the number of women who got pregnant as a result," Bedada said.|MORE
- Voice from Kenya: "If the goal of the Global Gag Rule is to ensure separation of abortion-related activities from family planning – in a country where abortion is illegal and causes several thousand injuries and deaths each year – it has sorely missed its mark." Download this excellent pdf file which details the "devastating" impact of the Global Gag Rule in Kenya.
- "The 'gag rule's' restrictions, which would be unconstitutional if applied in the United States, jeopardize the health of women and their families..." according to a special EngenderHealth report. ->> Read more.
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