International Prevention Agenda--110th Congress

Having worked to prevent unintended pregnancies and sexually transmitted infections worldwide for more than 90 years, Planned Parenthood knows better than anyone the immense value of preventive health care.  On behalf of the millions of women and men worldwide who are being denied access to contraceptives, condoms, and crucial information to help prevent unintended pregnancies and the spread of HIV/AIDS, we support provisions included in the Department of State, Foreign Operations, and Related Programs Appropriations Act, 2008 (S. ___/H.R. 2764) designed to ease the restrictions related to comprehensive reproductive health care, including contraceptives, condoms, and sound HIV prevention information, and to allow these preventative tools to reach people in need. 

Key Priorities

Support Access to Contraceptives, Condoms, and Reproductive Health Care Worldwide
Planned Parenthood supports a full repeal of the global gag rule, which compromises the integrity of health care and limits access to family planning and other basic reproductive health services.  The global gag rule bans international groups that receive U.S. funding from providing direct abortion services, counseling, education, referrals, or even lobbying for abortion legalization or reform in their countries, even with their own money.  Reproductive health nongovernmental organizations 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 policy was originally implemented by former President Reagan at a population conference in Mexico City in 1984, removed by former President Clinton, and reinstated by President George W. Bush during the first days of his presidency.

Additionally, organizations that refuse to sign on to the global gag rule cannot receive contraceptives funded by the U.S. Agency for International Development and therefore cannot serve the approximately 200 million women in developing countries who wish to delay or end childbearing but lack access to modern contraceptives.  The global gag rule has exacerbated the existing shortage of contraceptives by ending shipments of U.S.-donated contraceptives to more than 16 developing countries in Africa, Asia, and the Middle East, and denying contraceptives to leading family planning agencies in another 13 countries.  Planned Parenthood supports the repeal of this provision.

Support REAL HIV Prevention Information
Another provision in the FY2008 Appropriations bill provides authority to the president to waive the earmark in the global AIDS bill (The President’s Emergency Plan for AIDS Relief, or PEPFAR) that stipulates that at least one-third of all HIV/AIDS prevention funds be spent on “abstinence or fidelity promotion” programs.  Nearly 40 million people are living with HIV/AIDS.  Tragically, that number is rapidly increasing with an additional 4.3 million people infected in 2006 alone.  Approximately half of the new adult HIV infections are among young people ages 15-24, and the majority of these young people are women.  PEPFAR is an unprecedented, commendable effort to combat the global AIDS epidemic.  But according to reports from the Government Accountability Office, the Institute of Medicine, and countless experts in the field, the abstinence restriction is having a profoundly deleterious effect and should be eliminated.  The ability to waive the earmark would provide greater flexibility in the development of more comprehensive prevention approaches that are responsive to the needs of women and girls everywhere for the information, tools, and services necessary to protect themselves against HIV/AIDS.

Fund UNFPA Reproductive Health Care Services
UNFPA, the United Nations Population Fund, is the only multi-lateral agency specifically devoted to providing family planning and reproductive health care services, including birth control supplies and education, prenatal and obstetric care, and the prevention and treatment of sexually transmitted infections, including HIV/AIDS, as well as to reducing maternal mortality rates due to unsafe abortion practices.  The UNFPA also works to end violence against women and to expand educational opportunities for people worldwide.  Millions of people benefit from UNFPA programs in more than 140 countries throughout sub-Saharan Africa, Latin America and the Caribbean, Asia and the Pacific, the Arab states, Eastern Europe, and the former Soviet states. Planned Parenthood supports U.S. funding for UNFPA funding to aid women and families worldwide.

For the past six years, however, President Bush has withheld U.S. funding for UNFPA.  The administration argues that because UNFPA operates in China, it tacitly supports coercive abortion and forced sterilization in violation of U.S. law.  This law, the “Kemp-Kasten” amendment, is a vaguely worded prohibition on funding for organizations that “support” coercive reproductive health practices.  While this provision is aimed at withholding funds from China, it results in stripping funding from all countries supported by UNFPA.

For more information, please contact Planned Parenthood’s Government Relations Department at 202-973-4848.