– Lead by anti-family planning extremists, a narrow majority of the House of Representatives, with a vote of 218-210, stripped from a larger bill the Global Democracy Promotion Act, a measure ensuring the rights of foreign healthcare organizations to speak openly with their own governments and to counsel their patients on all medical options.
"Today’s vote is a sign that the Bush Administration is beholden to extremists who trample American values, including the right to free speech, to impose their agenda on the world," stated Rosemary Dempsey, Director of the Washington, DC office of the Center for Reproductive Rights. "We call on the Bush Administration to stop misinforming the public, leading them to believe that this is about American taxpayer dollars for abortion. In reality, the Helms Amendment has prevented U.S. funding for overseas abortions since 1973."
The Global Democracy Promotion Act was introduced in Congress this February as a stand-alone bill and therefore remains in play after today’s vote. The bipartisan measure would ensure that foreign organizations not be denied U.S. family planning funds on the basis of activities performed with their own money, such as medical services, including counseling or referrals, or on the basis of lawful lobbying and political speech.
The vote came in the form of a motion to strike the pro-democracy language added to the Foreign Relations Authorization Act (H.R. 1646) in last week’s committee mark-up by a bi-partisan vote of 26-22. The motion to strike was sponsored by anti-family planning Representatives Chris Smith (R-NJ), Henry Hyde (R-IL), Jim Barcia (D-MI) and James Oberstar (D-MN).
Under the global gag rule, imposed by President Bush on his first full day in office, foreign organizations that receive U.S. family planning funds cannot use their own, non-U.S. government funds to provide legal abortions, counsel patients about abortion, or to lobby their own governments for changes in abortion laws without jeopardizing U.S. family planning aid. Each year, 78,000 women worldwide die from unsafe abortion. US money has not been spent on funding for overseas abortion since 1973.
"A crucial part of the Center for Reproductive Rights' mission is to bring reproductive rights laws around the world in line with international human rights treaties. To do so, we engage with our partners around the world in fact-finding missions about the laws governing their countries, educate them about the effects of international treaties, and help them to talk to their governments and other crucial audiences to achieve their goals. The gag rule has inhibited our work by rendering partner organizations unable or afraid to work with us on these vital issues," Dempsey said.
