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September 27, 2007
Basnett, Oji & Kidanemariam in Washington
Indira Basnett, Ejike Oji and Saba Kidanemariam visited Washington to bring the voices of those affected by the Global Gag Rule to Capitol Hill.

Ethiopia, Nepal and Nigeria visited Washington in mid-September to help urge Congress to consider a full repeal of the Global Gag Rule, which severely restricts funding for abortion services, counseling or information around the world.

First implemented in 1984 during the Reagan administration, the policy bans any organization receiving U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID) funds from using their own, non-U.S. funds to provide any abortion services or to lobby their own governments to make abortion laws less restrictive.  (The Helms Amendment, passed in 1974, made it illegal to use USAID funds for any abortion activities.)

The tour followed an August U.S. Senate vote, in which the legislators voted 53-41 to repeal the Gag Rule. In July, the House of Representatives approved a partial repeal of the Global Gag Rule to allow purchases of contraceptives. President George W. Bush has threatened to veto whichever version comes to his desk.

Ethiopia’s Saba Kidanemariam, Nepal’s Dr. Indira Basnett and Nigeria’s Dr. Ejike Oji met with congressional staffers and presented to advocacy groups to discuss the ways in which the Gag Rule has harmed women and blocked free speech in their respective countries.

Ipas Ethiopia Director Kidanemariam said that in Ethiopia, where the abortion law was reformed in 2004, organizations receiving USAID monies couldn’t participate in the dialogue about the legislative change. Moreover, because the Global Gag Rule impedes discussion of abortion, it undermines government and civil society efforts to address Ethiopia’s extremely high maternal mortality rate; unsafe abortion is believed to contribute to almost one-third of all pregnancy-related deaths.

In addition to stifling dialogue, the Global Gag Rule has meant real — and negative — changes in women’s access to the full spectrum of reproductive health care, not just abortion. In Ethiopia, two leading organizations that provided abortion services, Marie Stopes Ethiopia and the Family Guidance Association of Ethiopia, lost vital funds and had to downsize — reducing services and distribution of otherwise hard-to-find contraceptives and cutting the number of community health workers — because they refused to accept the Gag Rule restrictions.  

In Nepal, restricting abortion means that health-care facilities that would be the most logical places to provide services can’t. The more than 40 postabortion care sites in the country don’t provide safe abortion care, legal after a 2002 reform, though they have the necessary medical tools and staff. While the Nepali government wants to offer safe abortion at existing sites — to serve women better, reduce the need to maintain multiple clinics and to make the most of a limited supply of trained providers — such integration is not possible under the Global Gag Rule.

According to Ipas’s country program manager in Nepal, Indira Basnett, the policy has ripple effects throughout the country. Without U.S. funding, some organizations that work on abortion can’t attend international trainings or conferences on other topics; such meetings give health-care professionals the opportunity to learn about best practices and new technology. And inside the country, where safe abortion care has been key to lowering Nepal’s maternal death rate, the imposition of the Global Gag Rule has sown rifts between people who should have one mission: saving women’s lives.

“We are a peace-loving country, and we like to work together. But this policy is dividing us,” Basnett said.

Not only is the Global Gag Rule creating tension within countries and harming women’s health, Ipas Nigeria Director Ejike Oji added that it fosters an unconscionable inequity between women in poorer countries and their counterparts in more developed nations.

“The irony is that USAID-funded programs do some work in treating women with abortion complications. But USAID does not purchase the equipment to provide this care, particularly manual vacuum aspiration (MVA), which according to the World Health Organization is the best tool for abortion care in low-resource settings.” 

He continued: “U.S. citizens who have an unwanted pregnancy have safe choices to make. They can keep the pregnancy and can have good prenatal services and a safe delivery of their babies. If they choose to end the pregnancy, they have the option of a safe abortion, and they can get on with their lives and live them to the fullest.

“I cannot say the same for my wife, daughter, sister or my Nigerian countrywoman. They, more often than not, do not have information to make a choice of controlling their fertility. Neither do they have the opportunity in order to end a pregnancy safely. In some circumstances, they pay the supreme price in order to make that choice.”

 

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