Even though the overturning of Roe v. Wade continues to send shock waves throughout the U.S., it’s also having ripple effects overseas.
Nelly Munyasia, executive director of Reproductive Health Network in Kenya, said Truthout After the Supreme Court ruling, Roe, Regressive abortion laws in Kenya and other countries have been met with renewed opposition to legalizing abortion or expanding abortion services.
“We have seen overnight that there is stronger opposition to abortion,” Munyasia says. “People are citing the recent events around Roe v. Wade and saying that the U.S. as has made a decision when it comes to abortion, so Kenya as a country should not even be discussing it.”
The court ruling and visible power of anti-abortion forces in the U.S. have also increased fears internationally that a future presidential administration in the U.S. may eventually reinstate the “global gag rule” — a policy that prohibits foreign nonprofits that depend on U.S. global health aid from providing abortion services of any kind, including engaging in advocacy for abortion law reform, even if they use non-U.S. funds for it.
As the Guttmacher Institute explains, the global gag rule policy “has historically been put in place by Republican presidents and rescinded by Democratic ones,” since it was first created in 1984.
Trump’s administration follows this trend. reinstated and expandedThe 2017 global gag rule, which was enacted by the U.S. Health Care Aid Administration, stipulates that no nonprofit organization can offer abortion services using any other funding sources.
Although the Biden administration ended this policy in 2021 it was still a disaster. It is time to end this policy permanently.
Congress and the Biden Administration have the chance to end the global gag order permanently via the Global Health, Empowerment and Rights (Global HER) ActThis bill was reintroduced to the House and Senate in January 20, 211, when Biden abolished the global gaunt rule. This bill would prevent future presidents from unilaterally reinstituting this harmful policy. It would also allow nonprofits in South America to use U.S. aid for various health services, even if they offer abortion services that are supported by a separate funding stream.
The bill received strong support from 177 cosponsors in both the House and the Senate within two weeks of its reintroduction. But, this bill would only be half the battle.
Global Health, Empowerment and Rights Act would put an end to U.S. interference in funding decisions made by organizations using funds from other sources. It does not address the question of whether U.S. assistance can be used for abortion services. Congress must permanently repeal the source ban on U.S. funds used to support abortion abroad services in order to end the ban. Helms Amendment. The Abortion Is Health Care Everywhere ActIf passed, the Helms Amendment would be repealed. According to the Guttmacher InstituteThe Helms Amendment’s repeal would result in 19 million fewer unplanned abortions per year worldwide, 17,000 fewer maternal deaths per year, and a 98% decrease in the number of maternal deaths caused by abortion in countries affected.
The global gag rule doesn’t just influence abortion. Organizations in the Global South who advocate for abortion rights and depended on USAID previously lost significant funding under the Trump administration. This led to staff reductions and disruption of other sexual, reproductive and health rights.
Munyasia’s organization in Kenya provides integrated reproductive health and rights services like HIV screening and access to contraceptives. “In Kenya, we are currently facing a triple threat: high number of teen pregnancies, HIV infections and gender-based violence. The lack of funding only makes the situation worse,” Munyasia told Truthout.
The global gag rule (also known as the Mexico City Policy) was first enacted by Reagan in 1984. It has since been repealed or amended based upon the presidency. This makes health care access in South Asia vulnerable to political shifts within the U.S. researchers have founda rise in HIV infections and maternal and child mortality during periods when the gag rule was in effect.
A 2022 studyA study that examined the impact of the policy upon the 38 countries (as per 2015) that rely heavily on U.S. healthcare aid found that reinstating a global gag rule in the future could result in approximately 24,000 additional child death and 2,700 additional maternal deaths each year. Nearly 50 percent of global HIV and AIDS fundingThe U.S. government, and HIV services, have suffered greatly under the Trump era global gaunt rule. The 2022 study found that the policy will likely lead to an additional 90,000 HIV infections each year. This is a 4 year presidential term that results in 108,000 maternal and infant deaths and 360,000 more HIV infection cases than when the policy was not in place.
The Family Planning Association of Nepal is a member of the International Planned Parenthood Federation. It was the first to offer services such as family planning and abortion in Nepal. Their services were not funded and have been a hit. Clients can access many services, including abortion. Family Planning Association of Nepal offers proper gynecological services, cervical cancer screenings, assistance in cases of gender-based violence, as well as a range of other services. It is an integrated program that also offers counseling and STI screenings. “With Nepal’s hilly terrain and scattered population in the mountainous region, the cost of these services is quite high. We want to reach everyone at the last mile too,” the association’s program director, Bina Shrestha, told Truthout.
Bergen Cooper, director of policy research at Fòs Feminista, a U.S.-based organization that has been studying the impact of the global gag rule, explained the policy’s impacts beyond family planning and abortion: “We found impacts in water, sanitation and hygiene, and HIV-specific impacts on key populations on LGBTQI populations and sex worker populations,” she told Truthout.
“It’s rare that you will find the standalone clinic that only provides abortion services. These are services that can be integrated into other services. For example, a non-compliance with the global gag rule could result in an organization losing funding. As a result, it limited their ability to provide services around hand-washing promotion interventions, anti-microbial resistance activities, neglected tropical disease activities, and prevention and treatment of wash-related illnesses.”
It has also been shown that the gag policy is in place does not reduce abortionNot a typo, but rather increases unsafe abortions. Research has shown that the global gag rule makes accessing reproductive care more difficult in countries such as Madagascar, where abortions are illegal. ReportedlyA nongovernmental organization in Madagascar was forced close clinics and ended a program that provided contraceptives and other family planning services free of charge to 17,000 poor women and girls. Health providers now report an increase in women seeking treatment to prevent complications from unsafe abortions.
Kenneth Juma, one of the researchers of “Beyond abortion: impacts of the expanded global gag rule in Kenya, Madagascar and Nepal,” adds that whether abortion is legal or not, abortions cannot be stopped. “What criminalization does is that it makes the abortions much more unsafe, because women who have decided to terminate their pregnancies, you cannot stop them. They will use every means possible to terminate.”
He adds, “So the actual, ultimate results of restrictive policies and reduced funding for abortion is that there’ll be a lot of unsafe abortions, which ultimately will be a burden to the health system.”
The reverse of Roe v. WadeProviders and advocates all over the world now feel the need to find stronger funding sources that are more reliable. Juma says there need to be efforts made to improve self-management of medical abortions in absence of adequate funding: “In countries where mifepristone and misoprostol are already available, there’s an opportunity for greater access to self-manage safe abortions, through the support of community structures and nonprofits servicing the region.” However, this is not in lieu of better and more stable policies. It is important for countries to create policies that are not driven by politics but that reflect the evidence.
“One of the recommendations we’ve had is that there is a need for a permanent repeal, but that permanent repeal should not happen at the expense of what each and every country must do,” Juma told Truthout. “Every country must also strengthen the resilience of health systems towards shocks, external or international shocks, such as the enactment of the global gag rule or the reversal of Roe v. Wade. If we have an agreement that depends on you for a particular service, how does it happen that every few years, there is a drastic change that affects our planning?”
While the Supreme Court decision on Roe v. WadeAlthough it does not have any legal impact on how global healthcare assistance is allocated, enabled, or restricted to be used, it does have an ideological and political impact.
“The Biden administration has stated that it is their policy to support sexual and reproductive health and rights domestically and globally,” said Cooper. “But stating it and doing everything within their power to support it are not the same thing. And they really do need to step up to permanently end the global gag rule.”
