Global Gag Rule

From Dian Harrison, President and CEO, Planned Parenthood Golden Gate:

"In 2001, President Bush reinstated the Global Gag Rule restricting funding for family planning. Under the gag rule, family planning agencies that receive U.S. money may not offer abortion counsel or refer women to abortion providers, or lobby to make or keep abortion legal in their own country, even if they use separate funds not provided by the United States. Providers are forced to make a cruel choice: Give up vital assistance and try to afford to continue to counsel women on all pregnancy options, or withhold critically important information.

The gag rule restricts the simplest ways to improve the status of women: funding birth control supplies so they can avoid unintended pregnancies and care for children they already have. In Ethiopia, abortion is illegal. Because most nongovernmental organizations that provide family planning have refused to abide by the gag rule, the resulting lack of U.S. funds has restricted the contraceptive supply, which means that abortion is also very common. Women take their lives into their own hands when faced with an unplanned pregnancy. If they cannot adequately care for another child, they try to end pregnancies with herbs, poisons, or wire. Complications from unsafe abortions are the second leading cause of death for women, after tuberculosis, in Ethiopia.

As long as the Bush administration restricts women's rights by blocking access to contraception with the gag rule, unintended pregnancies will occur. So will abortion. The Bush administration's Global Gag Rule and political posturing  . . . only exacerbate the situation. Women in all countries should have the right to make responsible decisions without coercion, discrimination, or violence. They should have access to comprehensive information and health care. They should be able to own property, pursue an education, decide who and when to marry, and whether and when to have children.

The situation in Ethiopia, however, is endemic around the world. Traditions and laws inextricably link sexual rights to education, employment, property rights, and political participation. . . .  Rather than taking into account the harsh realities of women's lives and working to provide real solutions for women and girls, the Bush administration is playing politics with women's lives."

~Excerpt from "Women Worldwide Face Effects of Bush's Gag Rule," San Francisco Chronicle, 7 March 2005.

Read more on the impact of the  Global Gag Rule in Ethiopia.

Call to Action

Urge repeal of the Global Gag Rule! 
Click here and tell the President to stop putting the lives of women and children at risk!