Vanguard: Trump’s Global Gag Rule: More cases of unsafe abortion imminent in Nigeria
“…One year after [U.S. President Trump’s] reinstatement of the [Mexico City] policy, access to contraceptive commodities and services, including provision of voluntary family planning information, education and services around sexual and gender-based violence like rape, female genital mutilation (FGM), early and forced marriage, amongst others, are adversely affected. … Nigerian experts generally describe the GGR as a restrictive, anti-choice policy. They agree that by blocking funding to the world’s largest NGO providers of modern contraception, the gag rule is worsening an already bad global contraceptive funding gap and undermining women’s ability to prevent unwanted pregnancy. … Many [Nigerian] states have no appreciably dedicated family planning or reproductive health financing, rather, they depend on major partners including USAID; the Department For International Development, DFID; United Nations Population Fund, UNFPA, among others. … [H]uge funding shortfalls are characteristic of the heavily donor-dependent National Family Planning and commodities procurement program. … Observers urge that the federal government needs to invest more in family planning services and contraceptive supplies…” (Ogundipe, 3/6).