Reinstatement Of Mexico City Policy Threatens Women’s Health, Access To Safe Family Planning Methods

CNN: Gag me: Trump’s anti-abortion executive order
Laurie Garrett, senior fellow for global health at the Council on Foreign Relations

“Here we go again. … President Donald Trump signed an executive order reinstating the global gag rule on overseas discussion of abortion by individuals and organizations receiving federal funding. We have been here twice before — under Presidents Ronald Reagan and George W. Bush — and we know that this order often backfires, leading to increased abortion rates. … The world begrudgingly worked around the gag rule in the 1980s, fought it … and will likely do battle with reinstated gags in 2017. Limiting family sizes to slow population expansion and prevent maternal mortality is a matter of policy throughout the United Nations and most of the 194 nations today. All the failures, bureaucratic nightmares and — yes — increases in abortion rates will now follow the gag rule reinstatement. It is an irrational 2017 policy that will produce a backlash. I cannot imagine what effect Trump imagines, but reinstating the gag rule in 2017 will certainly fail to have the effect Reagan envisioned…” (1/24).

Huffington Post: The Global Gag Rule: A Political Game With Severe Consequences For Women’s Lives
Ann Furedi, chief executive of British Pregnancy Advisory Service (BPAS)

“…The action [to reinstate the Mexico City policy] shows the extent to which abortion is seen, not as a fundamental health care necessity for women, but as a plaything for politicians who want to posture and demonstrate their traditional, conservative commitments. … It’s not just [U.S. President] Trump who is the problem. Every donor who refuses to accept that abortion is a necessary part of health care, and cannot be set apart from other methods of birth control, must be challenged. .‎.. Politicians will only stop treating abortion as a separate and negotiable part of health care when we stop allowing them to do it…” (1/24).

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