Media Outlets Examine Implications Of Mexico City Policy Reinstatement On Women’s Health Services In Kenya

The Star: Expect a rise in backstreet abortions, health experts warn
“…The Mexico City Policy requires that all foreign organizations that receive U.S. government funding neither perform nor speak about abortion. This means that NGOs must forfeit all U.S. government aid if they so much as tell a woman abortion is a legal option in her country. Reproductive health experts and NGOs that provide these services say the order will cripple family planning services and cause an increase in backstreet abortions and deaths from such abortions, in Kenya and many other African countries. The U.S. government is the biggest funder of reproductive health services in Sub- Saharan Africa…” (Michengi, 2/6).

UPI: Health clinics already hit by ‘catastrophic’ global gag rule on abortion
“As the U.S. presidential election campaign was unfolding on the other side of the world, one of the many markets selling cheap suitcases and clothing in the Eastleigh neighborhood of Little Somalia, in Kenya’s capital, Nairobi, decided to rebrand itself The Donald Trump Business Centre. Now, days into its namesake’s presidency, the aspirational marketplace finds itself next to a health clinic that will lose vital funding as a result of a recent Trump policy on family planning. Due to the reinstatement of the Mexico City Policy — or the Global Gag Rule — which cuts U.S. aid to charities that provide, support, or discuss abortion, the Marie Stopes International Eastleigh clinic can no longer accept the U.S. government money it was going to use to extend its free contraceptive services to thousands of women in rural areas…” (McNeish, 2/3).

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