Anti-abortion clause in federal budget bill puts U.S. women at risk

The Bush administration has wasted no time in furthering its all-out assault on women's reproductive rights, said Ipas President Elizabeth Maguire today.

"The anti-abortion language inserted at the last minute into the federal spending bill and approved by Congress amounts to a domestic gag rule that is sure to worsen this country's already dangerous shortage of qualified abortion providers," Maguire said. "Without question, it poses a serious threat to the health and well-being of millions of American women and girls."

Last week, both the House and Senate approved a $388 billion spending bill for fiscal year 2005 that included a clause providing cover for health-care providers and institutions looking to escape from their legal duty to provide constitutionally protected abortion services. Anti-abortion legislators tucked the language into a bill that Congress had to pass to keep the government operating. The language essentially extends to all health-care providers and insurers a so-called "conscientious objection" provision that may now be invoked by medical students who, on religious or moral grounds, do not want to undergo abortion training. Its passage represents a major legislative victory for anti-abortion groups that comprise a substantial part of President George W. Bush's political base.

"The effect of this legislation will be to create more obstacles for women seeking to exercise their legal right to abortion," said Maguire.

"Ipas sees the tragic effects of the global equivalents of this measure - the Helms Amendment and the Global Gag Rule - every day in our work around the world. We are horrified that American women - surrounded by the best health-care services in the world - may increasingly be forced to rely on unsafe clandestine abortion."

The Helms Amendment precludes use of U.S. aid funds for legal abortion care in developing countries. And in an even more extreme policy, the Bush administration's Global Gag Rule, or Mexico City Policy, disqualifies foreign nongovernmental organizations from receiving U.S. family-planning funding if they provide counseling on abortion, provide legal abortion services except in very narrow circumstances, or participate in political debate surrounding abortion.

"The measure that Congress approved last week provides cover for health-care institutions or insurance companies to enforce those same sorts of undemocratic and medically inappropriate restrictions," Maguire said. "It is inexcusable, and it must be overturned."

For more information, contact:
Kirsten Sherk
Senior Associate, Media Relations
e-mail: sherkk@ipas.org
phone: 919.960.5612
fax: 919.929.0258