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Joined: Jan 2002
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| The Global Gag Rule
I came across this great article yesterday and wanted to post it as I think its so, so important to be aware of this issue. Quote:
The Mexico City Policy, named for the place of the population conference where it was announced, was instituted by United States President Ronald Reagan in 1984 to make the issue of abortion a condition for providing funds from the US foreign aid agency USAID.
Called the "global gag rule" by opponents, it required "nongovernmental organizations to agree as a condition of their receipt of Federal funds that such organizations would neither perform nor actively promote abortion as a method of family planning in other nations." This policy forced NGOs to quickly decide whether to forgo often substantial funding from USAID or change their operations. The London-based International Planned Parenthood Federation (IPPF) refused to change their stance and lost more than 20% of its funding. Other reproductive health organizations including the Family Guidance Association of Ethiopia and the Planned Parenthood Association of Zambia likewise refused changes to match American policies, with even greater funding cuts as a result.[citation needed] Romanian and Colombian NGOs were among those that relented, deciding they could not give up US aid.
This policy was in effect until it was rescinded on January 22, 1993 by President Bill Clinton on his first working day as President.
It was likewise reinstated January 22, 2001, the first day of President George W. Bush's term with the comment, "It is my conviction that taxpayer funds should not be used to pay for abortions or advocate or actively promote abortion, either here or abroad. It is therefore my belief that the Mexico City Policy should be restored."
The gag rule has been criticized for cutting off funding to the crucial and sometimes sole health agencies in many regions. Additionally, critics dispute the effectiveness of the Mexico City policy in reducing abortions in the affected countries. Some of these critics go so far as to speculate that it may have even increased unwanted pregnancies and thus abortion rates in many countries denied USAID-donated condoms.
The President's Emergency Plan For AIDS Relief is excluded from the Mexico City Policy.[1]
| Mexico City Policy - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
But what does this mean in practical terms? Quote:
When you start researching unsafe abortion, the photographs and stories are so visceral that they carve themselves into your mind like a scalpel. You find yourself able to quote details of the internal damage caused by drinking a litre of bleach. You dream at night about the news story describing the effects of a uterus being stabbed, repeatedly, with a bamboo stick.
A report published by the US non-profit agency the Centre for Reproductive Rights includes a typical tale. In Breaking the Silence, an anonymous Kenyan health worker recalls the story of a pregnant 17-year-old he encountered, "a house-help with no money . . . [who] went to somebody to try to remove the pregnancy. And the person she went to did not know the anus from the vagina. He destroyed her anus, rectum, uterus and some of the small intestine. The girl now has a permanent colostomy."
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The prohibition goes so far that NGOs which want to keep their Usaid funding aren't permitted to cite statistics on unsafe abortion. Even telling the stories of women who have been maimed by unsafe procedures could be interpreted as lobbying - hence the shyness of that Kenyan health worker.
As such, in areas where organisations accept the gag, the abortion debate is skewed, entirely dominated by anti-abortion voices - just as Bush intended. (In areas where organisations have refused the gag, the effect is often exactly the same, since loss of funds can force them to close.)
The rule is thus fundamentally undemocratic, and also imperialist - after all, in countries where abortion is legal, it overrules national sovereignty. As Laura Katzive of the New York-based Centre for Reproductive Rights notes: "This is a policy that would be unconstitutional if applied to US citizens, because it's a condition on free speech. In the United States, you can't say 'you can express an idea, but, if you do, we'll withhold funding', so it's applying a double standard to NGOs overseas. That's shocking, particularly in the context of a foreign policy which is meant to promote democracy."
According to estimates, between 19 and 20 million unsafe abortions are performed worldwide each year, 97 per cent of them in developing countries. Annually, this kills roughly 68,000 women. That's eight women an hour, or a planeload per day - before you start weighing the toll of maiming and mutilation, infections and lost fertility, that affect many millions more each year.
As Beth Fredrick of the International Wom en's Health Coalition points out, when it comes to those 68,000 deaths, the US government "has blood on its hands".
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Ironically, it is likely that the policy may have increased rates of abortion. When clinics close, "women don't get other sexual health information or contraception", points out Louise Hutch ins of the UK group Abortion Rights, "so they're more likely to become pregnant again and suffer from sexually transmitted diseases".
The more you read about "the global gag rule", the more hideous it seems. This is a law of poli tical convenience, which sacrifices some of the world's poorest women (and, indeed, men) to appease the anti-abortion fervour of the religious right in the US. It seems no coincidence that the Helms Amendment was enacted in 1973. That was the very year when abortion became legal in the US, and the American right appears to have been determined to redress the balance by using the country's financial advantage to undermine safe abortion abroad.
As the global gag rule stands, it is clearly at odds with US law and the views of the majority of Americans, who support safe abortion. As Marcel Vekemans, senior medical adviser to the International Planned Parenthood Federation, says: "It's a case of, 'do what I say, not what I do'." Knowing how difficult it would be to overturn Roe v Wade in his own country, Bush has instead exported his personal convictions, and those of his closest supporters, worldwide.
As Laura Katzive notes: "If Americans were more aware of the policy, there would probably be more objections to it, but, because it doesn't affect our interests directly, it has been allowed to stay in place." Beth Fredrick concurs. "They were very calculated in putting forward the global gag rule . . . after all, no woman in a Kenyan slum is ever going to be called on to vote for President Bush or any of his cronies, are they?"
Since last November's US midterm elections - with that significant swing towards the Democrats - there has been speculation that it may now be possible to overturn the rule. This was last attempted back in 2005, when Senator Barbara Boxer sponsored an amendment to an appropriations bill that was swiftly passed in the Senate. At that stage, however, Bush threatened a veto, and the attempt faltered.
Despite the new distribution of power, Bush still holds that veto, so it is probably too soon for optimism: the activists I spoke to are holding out instead for a Democratic president in 2008. Last year, the UK made a small dent in the situation by pledging £3m to organisations that had been denied US funding as a result of the gag rule. In financial terms, of course, that's minimal, but it showed the UK boldly - and unusually - opposing US foreign policy and making a strong, clear case for the need for safe abortion services worldwide.
As Fredrick says, the rule denies women in developing countries "their humanity. It's dis respectful and undignified and it's based on an idea that women are something other than full human beings." While the gag rule stands, Bush's hands just get bloodier.
| New Statesman - Bush's war on women
This is such and important issue and is doing so much harm. It makes me shudder to think of what some of these women are forced to go through. Its also incredibly hypocritical - abortion allowed in the US but denied to women in third world countries. |
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