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The Global Gag Rule
Imagine for a moment that you are a woman living in a rural
area in a developing country. You have had only basic education and you are unemployed, with limited future job prospects.
Your husband moved to the city in search of work, but you have not heard from him in weeks, and he is no longer supporting
you and your family financially. You are HIV positive and you have just found out that you are six weeks pregnant with your
fourth child. The family planning clinic in your village has told you that your only option is to have the child and bring
her back for an HIV test after the birth. Even though your country's constitution makes provision for legal abortion up to
a specified period, the clinic will not refer you or provide abortion since they are prohibited from doing so, under threat
of losing the United States government-funded contraceptives they are dependant on. You know that although the likelihood
of complications is high, and it may end in your death, your only option now is to risk a backstreet abortion...
PREGNANT AFRICAN WOMEN
This sounds like a bizarre fiction, that the condition for receiving donor
aid can have such dire consequences for the women who are most in need of assistance. Yet it is the reality for many women
in developing countries, and it is the reality for many family planning NGOs that rely on contraceptive donations from US
government-sponsored aid organisations. The Global Gag Rule, as it has been dubbed, refers to the restrictions placed on foreign
family planning non-governmental organisations (NGOs) that pertain to a ban on women's recourse to abortion.
What does the global gag rule entail?
1. Family planning assistance may not be provided to foreign NGOs
that use funding from other sources to perform abortions, except in cases where there is an imminent threat to the life of
the woman, or in the case of rape or incest.
2. Foreign NGOs may not provide counseling and referral for abortion,
except where there is a threat to the mother's life, or rape or incest has caused the pregnancy.
3. Foreign NGOs may
not lobby to make abortion legal or more available in their own country.
These restrictions do not affect US NGOs,
who may still continue to perform, counsel on and advise women on abortion with funds received from non-US government sources,
without threat of loss of US aid sponsorship - provided that they enforce the gag rule on their foreign NGO partners. Referrals
for abortion by foreign NGOs are only permitted if ALL of the following requirements are met:
* the woman is already
pregnant;
* she "clearly states that she has already decided" on having the abortion;
* she "specifically
asks" where a safe, legal abortion may be obtained; and
* the family planning practitioner has reason to believe that
his or her country's medical ethics requires him or her to provide a referral.
While the policy does not prohibit foreign NGOs from providing emergency contraception as part of the family planning
and reproductive health services they offer, emergency contraception is effective only with early intervention, usually within
72 hours of conception - which is not always possible, regardless of where women are situated geographically in relation to
family planning centres. Basic things like the means to getting to family planning centres; education about the existence
and availability of alternative contraception; the stigma attached to seeking intervention, especially for young unmarried
women who are required to be chaste; freedom of movement in oppressively paternalistic societies, to name but a few, are all
deciding factors.
What can we do to change the global gag rule?
MAKE YOUR VOICE HEARD
By speaking out about the unjust policies implemented by the United States government and by creating public
awareness around the plight of women in developing countries who depend heavily on US-sponsored contraceptive aid for their
health and for the health of their children, we can help to eradicate these policies, once and for all, for the good of all
women around the world. As supporters of democracy and freedom of choice, we must show support for policy change to release
the stranglehold the US government currently has on women's right to freedom of choice in developing countries.
You have the choice, shouldn't everyone?
FREEDOM OF CHOICE
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