The Global Gag Rule

Reproductive health NGOs are forced to make a choice: accept the U.S. funding but agree to terms that may endanger the health of their patients, or reject the funding and be forced to cut programs — also endangering their patients' health. The global gag rule is anti-democratic at a time when the Bush administration claims to be spreading democracy around the globe. It also compromises the integrity of health care and limits access to family planning and other basic reproductive health services.

The Global Gag Rule Obstructs Free Speech and Democracy

In many countries around the world, abortion is illegal, or legal only in certain circumstances. NGOs in these countries are committed to educating their policymakers and fellow citizens about the dangers of unsafe abortion and lobbying for change. The United States should be encouraging this advocacy work as an essential step in promoting democracy and a politically active civil society. Instead, the global gag rule is hindering democratic movements around the world.

The Global Gag Rule Compromises the Integrity of Health Care

By limiting what a doctor can say to a patient, the global gag rule interferes with the doctor-patient relationship. Doctors are not allowed to counsel patients on their full range of options, potentially endangering their health and lives and fostering a feeling of mistrust between women and their doctors.

The Global Gag Rule Diminishes Availability of all Reproductive Health Services

Many NGOs have refused to accept the terms of the global gag rule and have therefore lost a significant source of funding. As a result, they have been forced to end programs and close clinics. In many communities that have been affected, the family planning provider was the only health care option for local women. So along with eliminating a potential abortion provider, the U.S. policy has eliminated family planning information and supplies, prenatal care and delivery assistance, and HIV-testing and prevention information, among other reproductive health care services.

Impact of the Global Gag Rule

Access Denied: The Global Gag Rule Impact Project, a joint research effort by Planned Parenthood Federation of America, Population Action International, an organization committed to advancing universal access to family planning and related health services, and Ipas, an international reproductive health organization, has documented some of the early effects of the gag rule on organizations that have refused to sign.

Less contraception is available.

• In Côte d'Ivoire, the Association Ivoirienne pour le Bien-Être Familial (AIBEF) lost $186,000 for contraceptive supplies, eliminating contraceptive services from nearly half of its 92 distribution points.
  
  
• In Ethiopia, the family planning association lost close to $56,000 in contraceptive supplies.
  
  
• The Family Planning Association of Uganda lost $3,739 in contraceptive supplies.
  
  
• The Planned Parenthood Association of Zambia (PPAZ) lost $137,092 in contraceptive supplies.

Clinics have closed and services have been eliminated.

• In Congo, the Association Congolaise pour le Bien-Être Familial lost $17,000 in U.S. assistance, forcing it to eliminate programs that served 15,739 clients.
  
  
• The Family Planning Association of Kenya, which received an average of $580,000 per year to fund its clinics, had to close three urban clinics serving 56,000 poor and underserved clients.
  
  
• The Family Guidance Association of Ethiopia (FGAE) operates 18 clinics, 24 youth service centers, 671 community-based reproductive health care sites, and hundreds of other health care facilities. The global gag rule has cost it more than $500,000, even though abortion is illegal in Ethiopia and the FGAE doesn't provide abortion services. It does, however, seek to educate local policymakers about the role that unsafe abortion plays in Ethiopia's staggering maternal mortality rate. The result is a loss of services to 301,054 women and 229,947 men in urban areas.

HIV/AIDS services are affected.

• In Cameroon, loss of U.S. assistance forced the family planning association to close a youth center that taught young people about responsible parenthood and sexually transmitted infections, including HIV/AIDS.
  
  
• The 697,000 clients of Planned Parenthood Association of Ghana will lose access not only to family planning services, but also to voluntary counseling and testing, other counseling services, and HIV/AIDS prevention education.
  
  
• The St. Lucia Planned Parenthood Association was forced to cancel plans to train 218 "peer helpers" from eight secondary schools and one primary school. This program would have reached 12,000 school-aged children with information about HIV prevention and sexual and reproductive health.

Global Democracy Promotion Act

In an attempt to fight the global gag rule, Representative Nita Lowey (D-NY) recently introduced the Global Democracy Promotion Act into the House of Representatives, co-sponsored by 61 other members of Congress.

This bill would repeal the global gag rule, overruling the president's executive order.