New analyses debunk U.S. government claims about impact of the Global Gag Rule

As a result of the Global Gag Rule, Marie Stopes International-Kenya lost $600,000 in USAID funds and was forced to close two clinics serving poor women.

Photo courtesy of Peter Barker, Panos Pictures.

Mounting evidence contradicts U.S. government claims that the Mexico City Policy has little effect on family planning and related services or on advocacy for reform of restrictive abortion laws. Drawing on sources including two recent reports that document decreased availability of critical health services and stifled political debate in six countries, Ipas and the Center for Reproductive Rights have released a fact sheet that exposes the Mexico City Policy, also known as the Global Gag Rule, as dangerous and anti-democratic.

"Many of us in the reproductive health field see the devastating effects of the gag rule every day in our work around the world," said Barbara Crane, Executive Vice President of Ipas. "This new research confirms what we have long known to be true: This policy jeopardizes the health and lives of many of the world's poorest women. The government's claims to the contrary are misleading at best."

Issued by President George W. Bush on January 22, 2001, the Global Gag Rule prohibits U.S. family planning assistance to foreign nongovernmental organizations (NGOs) that use funds from any source to perform, provide counseling or referral, or lobby for abortion. U.S. law has barred use of American funds for overseas provision of abortion services since 1973; the newer policy aims instead to silence discussion of abortion, even between physicians and their patients, and in circumstances in which abortion is legally permitted.

Analysis by Ipas and the Center for Reproductive Rights (CRR) disproves assertions on U.S. Agency for International Development's (USAID) website that the Mexico City Policy "does not have a major impact on the provision of family planning services," legal abortion, or lobbying to change abortion laws. The analysis found, for instance, that:

• By 2002, the gag rule had led to a reduction of USAID-donated contraceptive supplies to 16 countries and to leading family planning agencies in another 13.
• Refusal to adhere to the policy by two of Kenya's leading family planning NGOs forced them to close five clinics and cut services in remaining facilities.
• Thirty-five of 56 countries receiving USAID family planning assistance permit abortion on grounds broader than those permitted under the Mexico City Policy; health-care providers working in those countries at NGOs that wish to receive U.S. assistance can no longer provide the full range of reproductive health-care services or information to their patients.
• NGOs in at least 20 countries affected by the gag rule have recently attempted to reform abortion laws and policies. In numerous cases, the voices of the organizations most qualified to speak out about women's needs for safe abortion-related care and about the impact of unsafe abortion have been silenced by the gag rule.

Primary sources informing Ipas's and CRR's analysis include two reports released in the last two months, which examine different aspects of the gag rule's effects. Access Denied, issued by a coalition of NGOs led by Population Action International, focuses on organizations in Ethiopia, Kenya, Romania and Zambia that declined to accept the policy's restrictions and therefore lost U.S. family planning assistance. Breaking the Silence, researched and written by staff of CRR, examines effects on organizations in Ethiopia, Kenya, Peru and Uganda that agreed to the policy's restrictions in order to maintain critical funding, with a particular focus on how vital voices are now kept out of ongoing debates regarding saving women's lives from unsafe abortion.

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