President Biden Lifts the Global Gag Rule
Today, President Joe Biden has lifted the Global Gag Rule prohibiting nongovernmental groups (NGOs) from receiving federal funding if the NGO’s healthcare services include abortion (1).
Under the 2017 Global Gag Rule enacted by former President Donald Trump, foreign NGOs had to agree to forgo abortion services and stop advocating for abortion access to secure funding from the United States government. NGOs refusing to cooperate were required to cease their US-funded programming. This rule has negatively impacted the reproductive health of womxn all over the world.
The Global Gag Rule tends to be supported by Republican presidents, and Trump was no exception. Trump even expanded the global gag rule, changing the definition to apply to all US global health assistance. The Gag impacted $12 billion dollars’ worth of federal programming around the world, up from the $600 million already impacted by the policy under previous administrations. To make matters worse, in 2019, Trump’s administration blocked NGO funding for even associating with a gagged organization.
The Gag Rule negatively impacted the ability of NGOs to treat patients who were not even seeking abortioncare, including those seeking treatment for HIV/AIDS, malaria, water and sanitation, tuberculosis and other infectious diseases.
The global gag rule is an extension of the domestic antiabortion policies at play in this country (including the Helms Amendment (2), the Siljander amendment (3), and the Kemp-Kasten amendment)(4) Congress should next repeal all of these amendments, which provided the foundation on which the Global Gag Rule sits. Click here to find your State Representatives and here to locate your State’s Senators.
SisterLove applauds the Biden administration’s swift action to reverse these oppressive Trump policies to ensure reprodutive justice and sexual health to all both nationally and worldwide.
To support SisterLove & learn more about the criminalization of abortion in this country, please visit us at sisterlove.org and across all social media platforms (@SisterLoveInc).
1.Biden Administration Prepares To Overturn Trump Abortion Rule -- National Public Radio (npr.org)
2.The Helms Amendment Fact Sheet -- Population Connection Action (populationconnectionaction.org
3.The U.S. Government and International Family Planning -- Kaiser Family Foundation (kff.org)