The global gag rule dates back to an executive order given by President Reagan in 1984, which denied U.S. foreign aid to organizations that participated in abortion related services. This measure, also called the Mexico City Policy, was repealed by President Clinton soon after he was elected in 1993, and then reinstated by President George Bush on his second day in office.

Under this policy, international NGOs who have dedicated themselves to the promotion of safe, legal, reproductive health care choices for women are forced to make an unconscionable decision. They can accept funds from the U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID) for needed family planning programs and give up their legal right to provide abortion-related services. Or they can choose not to abide by this policy and will suffer a loss in funding that will drastically reduce their capacity to provide family planning and other needed reproductive health care services. This will inevitably lead to an increase in unwanted pregnancies and in turn, unsafe abortions. Either way, women will suffer.

• Every year, 350 million couples around the world have no access to contraceptive information or services.
• Every year, an estimated 80,000 women die from complications of unsafe abortion and thousands more suffer long term health consequences.
• If you are a woman in Africa, your risk of dying after an unsafe abortion is 1 in 150. If you are a woman in a developed country, your risk of dying after the same procedure is 1 in 3,700.

Unsafe abortion is one of the most easily preventable and treatable causes of maternal mortality and morbidity. By reinstating the Mexico City policy, the U.S. government is not only turning its back on the health needs of women worldwide, it is negating their reproductive rights and restricting their freedom of speech. Under these restrictions:

• A health center in Kenya, a country where one out of every five maternal deaths is due to botched abortions, could not advocate reform of the Kenyan law to enable women to obtain safe abortions.
• A 30 year old Bolivian woman, who is living in poverty with 10 children and suffers from heart disease, could not receive abortion services from a health care agency, even though abortion is legally permitted in Bolivia when a womans health is permitted.
• A 17 year old Cambodian woman who is HIV positive, with an unintended pregnancy, could not be counseled about options to terminate her pregnancy.

What is being done?