On Friday, February 14, Bush Administration officials previewed a policy that would extend a modified version of the global gag rule (also known as the Mexico City Policy) to the U.S. government’s overseas HIV/AIDS assistance programs, in addition to other components of reproductive health assistance including programs aimed at treating and preventing sexually transmissible infections (STIs) and gender-based violence, reducing maternal mortality, and providing reproductive health education.
Under this significant expansion of the gag, the Bush Administration is refusing to fund overseas health clinics that attempt to offer integrated reproductive and sexual health care. For example, overseas clinics that treat AIDS patients will be forced to withhold medical information about abortion options, or lose all U.S. funding for the prevention and treatment of HIV/AIDS. This policy is also being applied to programs focused on preventing gender-based violence and reducing maternal mortality. The Bush Administration called Friday’s announcement a "compromise" because it allows funds to be given to organizations with AIDS treatment programs and reproductive health programs, so long as the programs don’t overlap.
"The Bush Administration’s attempt to spin this policy as a ‘compromise’ is callous, and the timing of his announcement – on a Friday evening during a heightened national security alert – is an attempt to hide this heartless policy from the American public," said Julia Ernst, legislative counsel at the Center for Reproductive Rights. "Friday’s cryptic announcement leaves everyone in the dark on whether this policy has even been officially approved, or how it will be applied," added Ernst.
This extension of the global gag rule requires that U.S. HIV/AIDS and other vital reproductive health funds be withheld from overseas organizations that use their own funds to provide legal abortion services in the same clinics where HIV/AIDS and other services are provided, to provide accurate medical counseling or referrals on legal abortion options to patients, including those afflicted with HIV/AIDS, or to advocate for abortion law reform.
President Bush announced in his State-of-the-Union address in January that the U.S. would provide an additional $15 billion to combat HIV/AIDS in twelve African and two Caribbean countries hardest hit by the pandemic.
"It is unconscionable that President Bush is attaching these strings to these funds. Our President is dangling foreign assistance in front of HIV-decimated populations, only to yank the funding away unless health care organizations agree not to provide their patients with full and compassionate medical care in accordance with legal and ethical standards in their countries," said Katherine Hall-Martinez, director of the International Legal Program at the Center for Reproductive Rights. "This insidious policy will force foreign health care providers to withhold services and information about the option of abortion from women with AIDS when that information may be health- or life-saving for many women," added Hall-Martinez.
Friday’s announcement will negatively impact countries like South Africa, where abortion is legal but health care organizations are struggling to provide safe abortions while also tackling the AIDS pandemic. In South Africa it is estimated that about 19.94% of the population aged 15-49 years is HIV-positive and that, despite the country’s liberal abortion law, 200,000 unsafe abortions are performed each year because women do not have access to safe abortion services. The U.S. policy attempts to keep safe abortion services ghettoized from other reproductive and sexual health services in countries like South Africa.
In addition, many girls and young women in Africa, some of them orphaned as a result of HIV/AIDS, are forced to form sexual relationships with much older men in order to survive. These girls and young women often suffer a quadruple burden. They are subjected to sexual abuse, become HIV-positive, are forced to carry unwanted pregnancies to term, and then become responsible for caring for an infant who may also be infected. By taking money away from organizations that try to provide integrated services to these girls and young women, the U.S. government is effectively stripping them of their rights to health, life, and liberty.
The global gag rule already restricts organizations that receive U.S. family planning and population assistance from using their own non-U.S. funds to provide legal abortion services, to advocate for abortion law reform, or to even provide full and accurate medical information about abortion to their patients. Organizations that are opposed to abortion are free to accept these funds. Today’s order expands a modified – but equally insidious -- version of the global gag rule to include HIV/AIDS assistance and other reproductive health assistance.
