President Donald Trump‘s unprecedented expansion of a rule prohibiting U.S. funds to international aid groups that discuss or perform abortions is having a severe effect on countries most in need of global support, according to a new study, including prior claims the policy leads to millions of unwanted pregnancies and unsafe abortions and tens of thousands of deaths.
The policy — which applies to $9 billion in funds appropriated to multiple government agencies — is having wide-reaching effects, including shutting down funding to some nongovernmental organizations that served as the sole source of health care in developing countries hard-hit by sexually transmitted diseases and unintended pregnancies, according to the report ” Silenced: Prescribing Chaos in Global Health” conducted by the Center for Health and Gender Equality or CHANGE, released on Tuesday.
Trump’s expanded policy “has had immediate, direct, and potentially devastating ramifications, not only for women’s health, but for all health services for women, men and children,” CHANGE President Serra Sippel wrote in a letter accompanying the report.
The Mexico City Policy, known informally as the global gag rule or GGR, was first implemented by the Ronald Reagan administration in 1984 and has vacillated in its scope and enforcement during subsequent presidencies. Days after taking office, the Trump administration released its revised policy, known as Protecting Life in Global Health Assistance, an unprecedented step in expanding abortion prohibitions to all NGOs operating overseas that receive U.S. funding, as well as organizations they work with, allowing few exceptions for rape, incest or a pregnancy that endangers the woman’s life.
Implementing the policy has resulted in the loss of direct services to programs unrelated to abortions that provided sexual and reproductive health as well as clean water and sanitation services, according to the report. It adds that those services also targeted reducing rates of HIV and other diseases such as Zika.
The report cites an assessment by Marie Stopes International, an NGO that provides safe contraception and abortion services in 37 countries. Enforcement of the rule and subsequent funding cuts will result in 6.5 million unintended pregnancies, 2.2 million abortions, 2.1 million unsafe abortions and 21,700 maternal deaths between 2017 and 2020, the group says.
A senior administration official speaking to reporters on the condition of anonymity in May 2017 defended the policy as implementing “what the president has made very clear: U.S. taxpayer money should not be used to support foreign organizations that perform or actively promote abortion as a method of family planning in other nations.” A State Department fact sheet released in February said the policy “supports women’s empowerment.”
The wide-reaching nature of Trump’s policy — and the intensity with which his administration is implementing it and other comparable foreign policies — is creating confusion and uncertainty among groups that receive U.S. funds, the report states.
“The untenable choice foreign NGOs face — either to stop conducting abortion-related work or lose their U.S. funding — is only the beginning of the GGR’s far-reaching impacts,” according to the report. “Both paths lead to actual cuts to health services and information, often resulting in irreparable damage for people and entire communities.”
The report cites prior effects of presidential administrations’ changing the funding policies as White Houses switch control from Democratic to Republican. The International Planned Parenthood Fund lost more than $100 million in family planning and reproductive health programs during George W. Bush’s presidency, with the organization’s director general at the time estimating that accounted for 36 million unintended pregnancies and 15 million induced abortions.
Bush granted an exception for organizations working within a broader initiative his administration created to attempt to curb HIV rates in Africa, known as PEPFAR — a program that now accounts for $6 billion in U.S. overseas funding. The Trump version of the global gag rule eliminated those exemptions.
Subsequent confusion regarding which organizations are subject to the ban has prompted some “to over-interpret it for fear of being found non-compliant,” according to the report
“The chilling effect is there already, but given the expanded rule, and because Trump is not a usual president, I think there is a greater fear now of possibilities of retaliation and having to pay back the money if for some reason they’re not found to be complying,” Rebecca Brown, director of global advocacy for the Center for Reproductive Rights, was quoted as saying in the report. “So I think that the chilling effect compounded by the broad scope and fear makes the impacts worse this time.”
More from U.S. News
These Countries in Europe Have the Strictest Abortion Laws
Abortion Rates: Where and Why They’re Falling
Growing Number of Countries Are Clamping Down on Civil Society Groups
Report: Trump?s Foreign Abortion ?Gag Rule? Harms Developing Countries, Other Foreign Aid originally appeared on usnews.com
