Trump’s Global Gag Rule and Senegal
President Trump’s Budget Would Cause Millions of Unintended Pregnancies and Abortions around the World
Elimination of international family planning assistance escalates the Trump administration’s ruthless assault on women and compounds deadly effects of expanded Global Gag Rule.
Today, President Trump unveiled a budget plan for the coming year that would inflict unprecedented and destructive cuts targeted at the poor and most vulnerable, including a complete elimination of international family planning assistance from $607.5 million in FY 2017. Trump’s radical budget threatens women’s access to sexual and reproductive health services that help improve maternal and child health, reduce unintended pregnancies, lower HIV infection rates, and promote women’s rights and empowerment.
Abandoning investments in international family planning would be felt by women and girls who are left without recourse to find alternative means to protect themselves against unplanned pregnancies—many of which will now result in unsafe abortions. Eliminating U.S. assistance for international family planning and reproductive health programs would result in 3.3 million more abortions; 15,000 more maternal deaths, 8 million more unintended pregnancies, and 26 million fewer women and couples receiving services.
The budget follows the Trump administration’s announcement last week of a devastating Global Gag Rule expansion by fifteen orders of magnitude, which would for the first time also impact funding for HIV/AIDS, maternal and child health, malaria, global health security and other global health programs. At the time, officials declared that “the United States remains deeply committed to supporting health programs around the world. This change will have no impact on the total amount of U.S. Government funding for health programs around the world.”
Today’s budget request patently contradicts these assertions. “By zeroing out international family planning, the Trump administration demonstrates its flagrant disregard for human lives,” said Jonathan Rucks, PAI’s director of advocacy. “It wasn’t enough to cut off providers of comprehensive services with Trump’s expanded Global Gag Rule—this budget would ensure that millions more will be left without access to care, imperiling global health systems.”
Investments in sexual and reproductive health programs lead to healthier communities and greater economic potential and security abroad. U.S. investments in family planning and reproductive health programs are cost-effective and save lives. Every $1 invested in contraception saves $1.47 in pregnancy-related care and up to $150 for every dollar invested in other development areas.
Learn more about how Trump’s Global Gag Rule and budget cuts will harm women and communities.
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PAI champions policies that put women in charge of their reproductive health. We work with policymakers in Washington and our network of partners in developing countries to remove roadblocks between women and the services and supplies they need. For over 50 years, we’ve helped women succeed by upholding their basic rights. To learn more, visit pai.org.
Just two days after President Trump vowed that the United States would “continue to fight for women’s rights and equality across the country and around the world” the Trump-Pence administration commemorated Women’s History Month by doubling down on policies intended to reverse progress on reproductive rights.
The release of the Standard Provisions for Non-U.S. Nongovernmental Organizations outlines the administration’s initial guidance for the implementation of its harmful Global Gag Rule. (This guidance is identical to the March 2001 standard provision.) Although Trump’s Global Gag Rule dramatically expands the scope of the policy to all global health assistance, today’s guidance singles out only those programs that include U.S. family planning assistance. The prioritization of reproductive health programs in this initial guidance makes clear the Trump-Pence administration’s continued efforts to treat women as pawns in its anti-choice game of politics.
Trump’s Global Gag Rule risks women’s health and lives by forcing foreign NGOs to choose between receiving U.S. global health assistance and providing comprehensive sexual and reproductive health care. Providers must agree to not offer—with their own money—legal abortion services, and information or even referrals for abortion services or to advocate for abortion law reform in order to remain eligible to receive U.S. family planning funds.
“In the Trump-Pence administration’s haste to place women in the first line of fire of a grotesque and deadly policy, today’s piecemeal and incomplete guidance will generate disorder and inefficiency among both U.S. and foreign NGOs,” said Jonathan Rucks, Director of Advocacy at PAI.
“It’s hard to overstate how severely the Global Gag Rule will damage local health systems and undercut the work of our foreign NGO partners who provide vital health services to communities. Singling out family planning assistance from the rest of global health assistance will magnify the Global Gag Rule’s dangerous chilling effect and broaden the burden and harm to integrated health efforts.”
Family planning is a vital part of basic health care services and family planning clinics often serve as the entry point for women to access the entire health system. Whether here in the United States or abroad, attacks on family planning under the erroneous pretense of curbing legal abortions puts lifesaving services out of reach for the most vulnerable women. Evidence shows that restrictions imposed by the Global Gag Rule on family planning assistance do not decrease the number of abortions in developing countries, but reduces access to contraception and leads to more unwanted and high-risk pregnancies, unsafe abortions, and maternal illness, injury and death.
With President Trump’s unprecedented expansion of the policy to all global health assistance funding, the Global Gag Rule’s impact on health systems will be more severe and leave countries less able to respond to basic health needs and emerging crises. It remains to be seen how it will apply the policy to other sectors, but one thing is abundantly clear—the Trump-Pence administration is set on attacking women everywhere, no matter the cost.
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PAI champions policies that put women in charge of their reproductive health. We work with policymakers in Washington and our network of partners in developing countries to remove roadblocks between women and the services and supplies they need. For over 50 years, we’ve helped women succeed by upholding their basic rights. To learn more, visit pai.org.