Health Providers Worldwide Welcome Biden Reversal of Anti-Abortion Rule

By restoring funding cut off by his predecessor, President Biden ended four years of what abortion rights advocates called a concerted assault on women’s reproductive health in the developing world.

By Bhadra Sharma, Ruth Maclean, Oscar Lopez and Rick Gladstone
New York Times
Jan. 29, 2021

KATHMANDU, Nepal — When President Donald J. Trump scrapped tens of millions of dollars in aid to women’s health care providers around the world four years ago, the Family Planning Association of Nepal was forced to dismiss more than 200 people and close clinics in at least four parts of the country, one of Asia’s poorest.

Family planning education and birth-control distribution slowed or stopped in Nepal, which relies heavily on American financial assistance for public health programs. While abortion is legal in the country, the options for safe procedures were abruptly narrowed.

Continued: https://www.nytimes.com/2021/01/29/world/asia/gag-rule-abortion.html

Trump’s Global Gag Rule: More cases of unsafe abortion imminent in Nigeria

Trump’s Global Gag Rule: More cases of unsafe abortion imminent in Nigeria

March 6, 2018
By Sola Ogundipe

Women in developing countries were the first casualties as soon as President Donald Trump assumed office in January 2017. With a stroke of his pen, Trump declared war on women’s health by reinstating and expanding the Mexico City Policy, an executive order also known as the Global Gag Rule (GGR).

First introduced in 1984 by President Ronald Reagan, a Republican, the Mexico City Policy had earlier been suspended by former President Barack Obama, a Democrat, in 2009.

Continued: https://www.vanguardngr.com/2018/03/trumps-global-gag-rule-cases-unsafe-abortion-imminent-nigeria/

Trump abortion crackdown risks stoking Nigeria’s population boom

Trump abortion crackdown risks stoking Nigeria's population boom

Cuts to US foreign aid enacted by the US administration mean that supplies of contraception are dwindling in Nigerian family planning clinics

Ruth Maclean in Maiduguri
Sunday 9 July 2017

A Nigerian nurse-midwife allows herself a small smile as she injects a tiny piece of plastic into a young woman’s arm.

In a way, Zainab Malut is doing herself out of a job through this intervention at a family planning clinic in northern Nigeria. The contraceptive implant she persuaded her patient to get will mean she won’t need to deliver the woman’s babies for the next four years. But for the many women she sees each day, it means fewer mouths to feed and a degree of freedom.

Continued at source: The Guardian: https://www.theguardian.com/global-development/2017/jul/09/trump-abortion-crackdown-risks-stoking-nigerias-population-boom

Global gag rule expected to hit safe abortion, contraceptive use in Nigeria

Global gag rule expected to hit safe abortion, contraceptive use in Nigeria
By Christin Roby
9 June 2017

ABIDJAN, Ivory Coast — Marie Stopes International in Nigeria is bracing for a dramatic drop in funding, following United States President Donald Trump’s decision to reinstate the Mexico City Policy, or “global gag rule.”

MSI declined to sign onto the policy, which would require them to cut all services and information relating to abortion, and will therefore forfeit all funding from the U.S. Agency for International Development.

Continued at source: Devex: https://www.devex.com/news/global-gag-rule-expected-to-hit-safe-abortion-contraceptive-use-in-nigeria-90417

09.06.2017

How Trump abortion funding cuts could affect Africa

How Trump abortion funding cuts could affect Africa
By Anne Soy, BBC Africa health correspondent

28 January 2017

Donald Trump's pro-abortion funding ban has infuriated many global health organisations as they say it will unintentionally lead to more abortions and more deaths in Africa.

The US president signed the executive order to stop federal money going to international groups which perform or provide information on abortions during his first week in office.

Known as the "Mexico City Policy", or global gag rule by critics, it was no surprise that he reinstated it. First introduced by Ronald Reagan in 1984, it has been become a game of policy ping pong between Republican and Democrat presidents.

[continued at link]
Source, BBC.com: http://www.bbc.com/news/world-africa-38768901