The Global Gag Rule: A shameful policy

Princeton Pro-Choice Vox would like to call attention to executive power gone awry. The day President Bush took office, he reimposed the Global Gag Rule, which was initiated by Reagan and revoked by Clinton soon after his inauguration.

The Gag Rule, formally known as the Mexico City Policy, requires "nongovernmental organizations [NGOs] 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." In practice, the Global Gag Rule forces NGOs receiving money from the United States Agency for International Development to cease mentioning abortion, cease referring women seeking abortions to abortion providers and cease providing abortion services with private funding. In fact, the Global Gag Rule forbids NGOs from even engaging in local debates on abortion rights.

As a result, family planning organizations are forced to choose between providing clients with frank advice and staying open to provide poor individuals with critical healthcare. Family planning organizations which cannot abide by the Global Gag Rule restrictions have been forced to close health clinics and cease distributing condoms, reducing local healthcare, increasing unplanned pregnancies and unsafe abortions and promoting the spread of AIDS.

In rural Kenya, The Economist reports that International Planned Parenthood and Marie Stopes International have closed clinics providing cervical cancer screening and childhood immunizations, as well as complete reproductive health care. By causing NGOs to close locations, the Global Gag Rule attacks the most vulnerable and poorest individuals worldwide. Furthermore, when clinics close and individuals cannot receive advice, healthcare and condoms, the specter of AIDS becomes a reality for more people. In many parts of the world, family planning clinics are the only places where condoms and other forms of birth control are distributed. In Uganda, for instance, the ABCD — abstinence, be faithful, condoms or death — paradigm has been effective in reducing AIDS infections rates. But the Global Gag Rule prevents a key aspect of the ABCD plan from reaching needy individuals and exposes more people to AIDS.

Since contraception does not reach those who need it, unplanned pregnancies and unsafe abortions increase. In places like Nepal and Kenya, tens of thousands of poor women must receive care for complications from unsafe abortions each and every year. Women in underdeveloped countries are 33 times more likely to die from reproductive health related causes than are women in the developed world. This shameful fact underscores the callous disregard for impoverished women Bush demonstrates by his support of the Global Gag Rule.

Bush started his time in office by striking a blow for AIDS, a blow for unsafe abortions and a blow for poor public health. Princeton Pro-Choice Vox joins the American Public Health Association and Planned Parenthood in condemning this shameful and dangerous policy. We urge the Princeton community to carefully consider this issue when voting for the next president in 2008 and beyond. Max Wertzberger is a junior writing on behalf of Princeton Pro-Choice Vox. He can be reached at mwertzbe@princeton.edu.