Originally published in Synapse on January 29, 2009.
President Barack Obama moved last week to reverse a U.S. policy restricting international abortion-related services. A policy known as the “Mexico City Policy” or the “Global Gag Rule” banned USAID funds to overseas NGOs that perform or promote abortions.
This has effectively “gagged” NGOs from mentioning abortion, even in the context of referring a patient to another clinic that does provide such services. Organizations lose their funding even if the USAID money is used to provide other services.
Originally announced at the 1984 UN International Conference on Population in Mexico City, the ban has been instated and reversed by every Republican and Democratic president since Reagan. Bush re-instated it on his first day in office, setting a tone for the rest of his eight-year presidency.
Obama continued this tradition last Friday by signing an executive order to reverse the policy. The impacts of the ban have been far-reaching. For example, the International Planned Parenthood Federation lost 20 percent of its funding when it chose not to abide by the stipulations.
Critics state that the policy denies family planning services to the poorest of the poor, women in developing countries that lack adequate health infrastructure and therefore rely heavily on NGOs. The effect of the policy has been difficult to quantify in terms of patient outcomes, number of abortions performed, or number of clinics closed.
However, research indicates that providing abortion services does not alter the number of abortions; rather, the abortions that are performed are more likely to be safe for the mother. President Obama signed the order just one day after the 36th anniversary of Roe v. Wade.
Throughout his campaign, he has emphasized that women’s reproductive health should be a matter of individual choice, rather than government mandate. This executive order was just one in a series of moves last week that sent a clear message to the public that the Obama administration is making a clean break from the Bush era.
