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President-elect Trump is expected to reinstate a controversial policy shortly after taking office that would bar foreign non-governmental organizations that perform, advise or provide information on abortions abroad from receiving US funding.
The Mexico City policy, known as the global gag rule by its opponents, was first introduced during the second Reagan administration and has been revoked by every Democratic president and reinstated by every Republican president since then. Trump earlier restored the policy four days into his first term before President Biden he rescinded it a week on your account.
Proponents of the policy claim it prevents U.S. taxpayer funds from being spent on abortions. But opponents point out that there is legislation in place, as it is now the Helms Amendment — which already protects taxpayer funds from being used for abortions abroad.
Instead, they argue, the global gag rule imposes restrictions that diminish the effectiveness of global health programs.
“It’s like putting a new red sock on a white load of laundry, it contaminates everything around it,” said Rachel Clement, senior director of US government strategy at Population Action International, a non-governmental organization that works to increase global access. to family planning and reproductive care.
Although the United States does not fund abortions abroad, nongovernmental organizations that perform, provide counseling, or information about abortions are still eligible for U.S. funding if they use separate funds to pay for abortion-related work.
The Mexico City policy has typically been invoked by presidential memoranda, which is what Trump did during his first term. It also historically required foreign NGOs to certify that they would not perform or promote abortion as a family planning method through any funding source in order to receive global family planning funding from the US government, according to the health policy with no incentive to profit KFF.
Congress also has the ability to institute policy through legislation, but has only done so once before.
Trump will likely restore the policy just as quickly after he is sworn into office on Jan. 20, if not more, as he did in his first term.
“We anticipate it will be a Week 1 policy, if not a Day 1 policy,” said Caitlin Horrigan, senior director of global advocacy at the Planned Parenthood Federation of America.
When Trump reinstated the policy in 2017, he renamed it “Protecting Life in Global Health Care” and amended it to include most of the country’s bilateral global health care, according to KFF.
One of the global assistance programs included in this expansion was the President’s Emergency Plan for AIDS Relief (PEPFAR), which has helped fight HIV and AIDS across Africa for more than 20 years .
The program has now come under scrutiny after US officials recently told members of Congress that a review of PEPFAR-funded service providers in Mozambique found that some nurses had been performing abortions from 2021.
Health care programs that violate the policy can have their funding terminated.
Trump’s policy expansion also included nutrition, maternal and child health programs, as well as tuberculosis and malaria prevention programs, and extended restrictions on approximately $8.8 billion in US global health care, as reported. Human Rights Watch.
Reproductive health advocates hope Trump will expand the policy further, pointing to his past actions on the global gag rule and Project 2025 as evidence of things to come.
Project 2025, a conservative policy plan led by the Heritage Foundation, recommends that the Mexico City Policy be expanded to include almost all US foreign assistance.
That would include humanitarian aid, which would greatly increase the amount of foreign aid dollars affected by the policy, according to Rebecca Brown, vice president of global advocacy at the Center for Reproductive Rights.
The United States has given about $54 billion in humanitarian aid since 2021, according to the Department of State.
It could also be expanded to include organizations that receive foreign aid from the United States but are based in the United States, Brown added, making it difficult for them to work.
Trump tried to distance himself from Project 2025 during the campaign, claiming that it had “nothing to do” with the long political proposal. But some of his authors served in his first administration, and he has since selected some to be part of his new administration.
“We don’t know for sure what he’s going to do, but we’re preparing,” Horrigan said.
