The United States, as the world’s foreign assistance leader, must play a key role in safeguarding a comprehensive and integrated approach to sexual and reproductive health and rights for young women. This fact sheet outlines policy challenges that deny young women their sexual and reproductive rights and puts forth policy actions the U.S. government should take: expand family planning funding, repeal the damaging Helms Amendment, permanently repeal the Mexico City Policy (also called the Global Gag Rule), and continue to work toward a progressive sexual and reproductive health agenda in platforms like the International Conference on Population and Development and the United Nations.
Region: US and Canada
How U.S. Foreign Policy BLOCKS Women’s Access to Safe Abortion Overseas
This factsheet provides an overview of the Helms Amendment and how it harms the world’s most vulnerable women by denying them access to safe abortion services.
New Polling Shows Majority of Voters Favor Overturning Helms
This memo summarizes key findings from an online survey among 800 registered voters nationwide conducted by Hart Research on behalf of Ipas.
Key Messages on the Harms of the Helms Amendment and the Case for Repeal
When talking about the Helms Amendment and U.S. foreign assistance for safe abortion, these key messages are simple and represent what voters feel, according to 2020 polling results.
A research agenda for moving early medical pregnancy termination over the counter
Given the overall safety profile and increasing availability of medical pregnancy termination drugs, we asked: would the mifepristone–misoprostol regimen for medical termination at ≤10 weeks of gestation meet US Food and Drug Administration regulatory criteria for over-the-counter (OTC) approval, and if not, what are the present research gaps?
Trump’s domestic gag rule will silence, shame, and stigmatize women
Don’t forget women’s reproductive health in the wake of Harvey
Using the reproductive justice framework for message development in the Latin and Central America Region
How Nikki Haley’s ambassador appointment threatens the spirit and intent of the UN
Helms and Hyde Amendments: More than 40 years of human rights violations
Confronting abortion stigma
Every day of every week several state legislatures are hard at work creating more and more restrictions to punish both women in need of abortion and the medical professionals providing safe abortion care. What do all of these actions across the country share? They’re all rooted in abortion stigma.