Since 1984, successive Republican administrations have enforced—and tightened—a policy that bars U.S. family planning funds from going to non-governmental organizations that provide abortion counseling or referrals, advocate for expansion of abortion services, or lobby to decriminalize abortion. What this means in practice is that some clinics that see patients on a broad range of health issues close or never open in the first place for lack of money. This ultimately means more abortions—legal or otherwise—because of the lack of access to birth control and sex education.
Under the Clinton and Obama administrations, this “global gag rule” was rescinded. But when Donald Trump arrived at the White House two years ago, it was reimposed, this time tightening the screws by also cutting-off U.S. assistance for maternal and child health assistance and HIV under the President’s Emergency Plan for AIDS Relief (PEPFAR) to any nongovernmental organizations (NGOs) that also provide abortion-related information or advocacy. No U.S. foreign assistance funds have gone to provide abortions since the Helms Act was passed in 1973.
During the George W. Bush administration, according to the New York Times, the gag rule involved about $600 million in global health funding. But under the wider Trump policy established in May 2017, that figure has leaped to $8.8 billion. The Guttmacher Institute estimates that half the world’s 1.65 billion women aged 15-44 are affected by the gag rule. And now, Secretary of State Mike Pompeo announced Tuesday, this “Mexico City policy”—so named because it was first announced in that city 35 years ago at the United Nations International Conference on Population and Development—will be expanded again:
We will enforce a strict prohibition on backdoor-funding schemes and end-runs around our policy. American taxpayer dollars will not be used to underwrite abortions.