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OROne of Joe Biden’s first acts as president is expected to be the repeal of a rule on U.S. foreign aid, which human rights activists say has prevented millions of women around the world from accessing it. to appropriate sexual and reproductive health care for the past four years.
Trump reinstated the so-called “global gag rule,” also known as the Mexico City policy, on his first Monday morning in office in January 2017. The rule, first introduced by President Ronald Reagan in 1984 , means that if an organization receives government funding, it cannot participate in providing abortion services, counseling, or even advocating for abortion law, even if it does so using other non-US funds.
The reestablishment of the rule was a move expected by a Republican administration, but in the months that followed, it was expanded to make it unprecedented. Previously the rule only applied to reproductive health funding, but now it applies to all public health funding, affecting nearly $ 9bn (£ 6.8bn) a year in foreign aid. The new rule means that NGOs cannot receive money for sanitation services, access to clean water or HIV / AIDS programs if they also run programs that offer abortion or counseling services.
“It is important that we not underestimate the damage that has been done. This was not the typical Republican administration, where some bad policies came back and now they are going to be rescinded again, ”said Serra Sippel, president of the Center for Health and Gender Equity in Washington DC.
US Vice President Mike Pence, who has a long history of ultra-conservative positions on abortion, has pushed the agenda. “Denying women access to contraception and abortion is critical to who he is and the world he wants to create,” Sippel said.
Numerous reports have found that the implementation of the global gag rule leads to an increase in the number of unsafe abortions and endangers the health of women. “Girls have been losing their lives just because of lack of access to services,” said Melvine Ouyo, a former clinic manager for Family Health Options Kenya, an organization that had to close five clinics after refusing to accept the new conditions of help from United States. “The impact of the global gag rule has been really devastating, and most of the organization in Kenya has felt it,” he said.
Keifer Buckingham, Senior Policy Advisor for the Open Society Foundations, said the rule left thousands of organizations with a “horrible” decision to make: “Are we turning down very lucrative money from the US government to continue providing life-saving care? , or do we accept the money and compromise our values and the provision of reproductive health services? “
The Marie Stopes International organization, which works in 37 countries around the world, refused to subscribe to the global gag rule in 2017 and thus had to cut $ 30 million a year in US funding. The organization estimates that during Trump’s entire term, these funds would have enabled it to serve 8 million women with family planning help, preventing 6 million unwanted pregnancies, 1.8 million unsafe abortions and 20,000 maternal deaths.
Dr Carole Sekimpi, who heads the organization’s Uganda program, said she had to cut five mobile outreach teams in the wake of Trump’s 2017 order, until donors from different countries stepped in to fill the funding gap. . But the biggest problem was that other local organizations backed away from joint projects, fearing they would lose their own funding.
“Because the regulation is so complicated and the US government’s interpretation is often quite general, everyone wants to be sure,” he said.
Advocates for rights hope that a Biden administration can pass a law presented to Congress last year, known as the Global Health, Empowerment and Rights (HER) Act, that would permanently repeal the rule.
Vice President-elect Kamala Harris supported the law last year. “The United States should never force nongovernmental organizations to choose between receiving American aid and providing comprehensive reproductive health care to women around the world,” she said. However, it is not yet clear whether the next administration will have the numbers to pass the law in Congress.
In addition to the global gag rule, the Trump administration has also tried to lead a global push to promote so-called “family values” and restrict access to abortion alongside LGBT rights. In some cases, this rhetorical support may have been as damaging to the cause of women’s rights globally as economic sanctions.
“Under the leadership of President Trump, America has upheld the dignity of human life everywhere and always,” Secretary of State Mike Pompeo said last month at the signing ceremony of an anti-abortion document known as the Geneva Consensus Statement. “He has done it like no other president in history. We have mounted an unprecedented defense of the foreign-born. “
About 30 governments, mainly authoritarian states, signed the document, in which the signatories “reaffirm that there is no international right to abortion.” Hungary and Poland were the only two EU members to sign. There have been huge protests in Poland recently over a constitutional ruling that would ban almost all abortions in the country.
“There are many governments that are emboldened and empowered by the last four years of the Trump administration pushing this rhetoric and they will continue to push it globally,” Buckingham said.
Yet alongside the recognition of the damage done, there is also impatience for a new era to begin and for a change of tone in the White House.
“We did a lot during the Obama administration, and I hope that Biden really does this in his early days so that we can get these things back. I am so expectant and excited that things are rapidly changing for the better, ”said Ouyo.
