New report finds Global Gag Rule contributes to more unintended pregnancies, unsafe abortion overseas

Ipas, an international organization dedicated entirely to ending the preventable deaths and disabilities caused by unsafe abortion, joined a coalition of groups today in releasing Access Denied, a new study documenting the harmful effects of the Bush Administration’s restrictions on U.S. funding for international family planning, widely known as the Global Gag Rule. The policy prohibits U.S. family planning assistance to foreign nongovernmental organizations (NGOs) that use funding from any source to perform, provide counseling or referral, or lobby for abortion. The study examines the consequences of this policy in Ethiopia, Kenya, Romania and Zambia.

“By denying women access to a full range of reproductive health services – including safe abortion in circumstances where it is legal – the policy only leads to more unwanted pregnancies, more unsafe abortions, and tragically, preventable deaths and injuries to the world’s most vulnerable women and girls,” said Barbara Crane, Ipas Executive Vice President. “And by prohibiting doctors and others working in local U.S.-funded NGOs from speaking out to their own policymakers, the Global Gag Rule stands in the way of efforts to end this carnage.”

Project findings indicate that the Global Gag Rule reduces access to vital family planning and related health services by:

• Forcing the closure of established family planning organizations and clinics
  • Study finding: Five clinics in Kenya that provide family planning as well as pre- and post-natal obstetric care for mothers and well-baby care for infants have been closed because of the U.S. Gag Rule policy.
• Blocking supplies of U.S.-funded contraceptives to groups that don’t comply with the restrictions
  • Study finding: In Ethiopia, where the rate of maternal death is extremely high and women are often desperate for contraception, a rural clinic that provided 70% of its clients with Depo-Provera has no more stock and has been cut off by USAID.
• Derailing the provision of contraceptive information and services to women who have had abortions – an essential step to reduce repeat abortions
  • Study finding: In Romania, where abortion is widespread and unsafe abortion accounts for many maternal deaths and injuries, the Gag Rule has impeded efforts to provide post-abortion family planning counseling.

  “As an international organization working to protect women’s health throughout the developing world, we are witness to the dangerous effects of the Gag Rule every day,” said Crane. “It forces private providers of family planning and other health services to choose between accepting badly needed financial support from the United States and responding comprehensively to the health needs of the people they serve. Women suffer in either case.”

  For three decades, Ipas has worked with local partners throughout Africa, Asia and Latin America to provide training and medical equipment designed to prevent deaths and injuries from unsafe abortion, which claims the lives of nearly 70,000 women every year. Ipas is one of two U.S.-based nongovernmental organizations that stopped accepting U.S. government funding when the Global Gag Rule was announced.

  The Global Gag Rule Impact Project was led by Population Action International, with Ipas and Planned Parenthood Federation of America as partners. Assistance in gathering evidence of impact in the field was provided by EngenderHealth and Pathfinder International.

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