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Yahoo!Today, March 8, is International Women’s Day, a time to pause and reflect upon the barriers that women throughout the world encounter on a daily basis as they aim to achieve equality, freedom, social advancement, and the right to choose freely whether and when to have children. Despite recent advances, women in the United States and abroad continue to suffer the consequence of a right-wing U.S. administration that has put politics before health and ideology before science.
Six years ago, the Bush administration reinstated the global gag rule. While purportedly designed to reduce abortion and access to abortion services, in reality the global gag rule has devastating effects on the delivery of reproductive healthcare services abroad. This policy stipulates that organizations that receive U.S. family planning assistance cannot provide, counsel, or refer for abortion services. Neither can these organizations advocate for abortion legalization in their own countries, even if they do so with their own funds. Consequently, this policy places the lives of our most vulnerable women in danger as healthcare providers are unable to offer basic reproductive health services.
In developing countries, access to family planning is often a matter of life or death. One woman dies every minute due to pregnancy-related causes and an estimated 68,000 women worldwide die each year as a result of complications from unsafe abortions. These numbers could be greatly reduced with expanded access to contraception.
According to the Global Gag Rule Project, a collaborative research effort led by Population Action International and Planned Parenthood Federation of America, 66 percent of the population of Kenya is 24 years old or younger, and has limited knowledge of family planning, HIV/AIDS prevention, and sexually transmitted infections (STIs). Due to the reinstatement of the global gag rule, Kenya was forced to close eight clinics, reduce staff in its remaining clinics, and significantly reduce family planning services in 2006. In Zambia, the policy had similarly dire consequences, forcing the only reproductive health clinic in the entire country to lose nearly 40 percent of its staff and reduce services, thus ending the distribution of contraceptive supplies to the community. Without U.S. funding, the clinic is unable to meet Zambia’s growing demand for reproductive health services.
The policies set forth by the Bush administration do not represent America at its best, nor do they represent the values that the majority of Americans hold dear. Determined to end the global gag rule, Congresswoman Nita Lowey (D-NY), joined by Republican Rep. Christopher Shays (R-CT), reintroduced the Global Democracy Promotion Act, which intends to repeal the global gag rule. Ending this policy that threatens the lives of the most vulnerable women around the world would only be the first step in ensuring women’s right to reproductive healthcare, but it is a crucial step.
We must continue to insist that global access to family planning is a healthcare issue and not a political one. I ask you to contact your member of Congress and urge him or her to support the Global Democracy Promotion Act so that family planning organizations in developing nations can receive the U.S. funding they need to expand the reproductive healthcare services and programs we know are successful in saving women’s lives. Please contact Representative Elton Gallegly (497-2224) or Representative Lois Capps (385-3440) today.
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Visit ppsbvslo.org for further information on reproductive healthcare services and programs.
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