How Trump’s abortion gag rule policy impacts the global AIDS crisis

How Trump's abortion gag rule policy impacts the global AIDS crisis

By Rory Smith, CNN
Tue July 31, 2018

(CNN)New findings presented last week at the 22nd International AIDS Conference reveal how President Donald Trump's expansion of the so-called global gag rule -- which restricts US health assistance funding to non-US NGOs that offer abortion services -- is likely to have widescale negative effects on the fight against the HIV/AIDS epidemic.

Four hundred seventy non-US NGOs working in the prevention and treatment of HIV/AIDS across the world might be subject to the expanded global gag rule, according to new data presented at the conference. These organizations received $900 million from fiscal year 2013 to fiscal year 2015.

Continued: https://www.cnn.com/2018/07/31/health/trumps-gag-rule-effects-hiv-aids-intl/index.html

Trump abortion ‘gag rule’ hurts AIDS fight, advocates say

Trump abortion 'gag rule' hurts AIDS fight, advocates say
The ban on abortion funding hurts clinics that provide a broad range of health services, experts said at the International AIDS Conference.

by Maggie Fox
Jul.27.2018

The Trump administration’s rollout of the so-called global gag rule, which keeps foreign aid from going to groups that provide abortion services, is already damaging efforts to battle the AIDS epidemic, advocates and researchers said Friday.

The new policy is also leading to closures of clinics that provide broad health services, including AIDS drugs, they said at the International AIDS Conference in Amsterdam. And it could undo years of efforts to build up health systems in developing countries.

Continued: https://www.nbcnews.com/health/health-news/trump-abortion-gag-rule-hurts-aids-fight-advocates-say-n895316

Report Slams Trump’s Abortion ‘Gag Rule’

Report Slams Trump’s Abortion ‘Gag Rule’
A rule first imposed by Ronald Reagan and intensified by Donald Trump doesn’t prevent abortions in developing countries and limits other unrelated medical services, according to a new analysis.

By Paul D. Shinkman, Senior National Security Writer
June 5, 2018

President Donald Trump's unprecedented expansion of a rule prohibiting U.S. funds to international aid groups that discuss or perform abortions is having a severe effect on countries most in need of global support, according to a new study, including prior claims the policy leads to millions of unwanted pregnancies and unsafe abortions and tens of thousands of deaths.

The policy – which applies to $9 billion in funds appropriated to multiple government agencies – is having wide-reaching effects, including shutting down funding to some nongovernmental organizations that served as the sole source of health care in developing countries hard-hit by sexually transmitted diseases and unintended pregnancies, according to the report "Prescribing Chaos in Global Health: The Global Gag Rule From 1984-2018" conducted by the Center for Health and Gender Equality or CHANGE, released on Tuesday.

Continued: https://www.usnews.com/news/best-countries/articles/2018-06-05/report-trumps-foreign-abortion-gag-rule-harms-developing-countries-other-foreign-aid

Nigeria – ‘Global Gag Rule affecting NGOs’

‘Global Gag Rule affecting NGOs’
Posted By: OYEYEMI GBENGA-MUSTAPHA
May 4, 2018

Olayide Akanni is the Executive Director of Journalists Against AIDS (JAAIDS) Nigeria, a non-governmental organisation (NGO) on the prevention, care and control of HIV, AIDS and tuberculosis. In this interview, she tells OYEYEMI GBENGA-MUSTAPHA how the Mexico City Policy, also called Global Gag Rule (GGR), introduced by the United States government will affect NGOs.

She has worked in many non-governmental organisatons (NGOs) over the years. Ms Olayide Akanni worked, among others, on Journalists Against AIDS (JAAIDS), African Civil Society Coalition on HIV/AIDS in promoting HIV/AIDS and TB treatment literacy, building capacity for media and civil society groups, and monitoring universal access to prevention, treatment and care services.

Continued: http://thenationonlineng.net/global-gag-rule-affecting-ngos/

Trump’s War on Maternal Health

Trump’s War on Maternal Health
Mar 19, 2018
Anne-Marie Slaughter, Elizabeth Radin

Around the world, women continue to die from complications arising in childbirth, even though maternal mortality is a problem that we know how to solve. What is missing is not the know-how, but funding and political leaders who are brave enough to put women's health before partisan politics.

WASHINGTON, DC – In December 2014, the cover of Time magazine’s “Person of the Year” issue featured Salome Karwah, a nursing assistant who not only survived the Ebola epidemic in her native Liberia that year, but also helped waves of patients arriving at her Ebola ward. Karwah was a hero who met a tragic end. One year ago, she died from complications in childbirth, a killer that every month takes twice as many lives as the entire Ebola epidemic.

Continued: https://www.project-syndicate.org/commentary/trump-republicans-maternal-mortality-by-anne-marie-slaughter-and-elizabeth-radin-2018-03?wpmm=1&wpisrc=nl_todayworld

Trump’s Abortion Gag Rule Is Hurting Reproductive Rights Around the Globe

Trump’s Abortion Gag Rule Is Hurting Reproductive Rights Around the Globe
This administration’s version of the Global Gag Rule could impact up to 26 million women worldwide.

By Michelle Chen
March 6, 2018

In January, women marked one year of Trump’s presidency by rallying in protest, showing they refused to be silenced by Trump’s oppressive regime. But January also saw the first anniversary of the Global Gag rule, the administration’s ban on international-aid funding for groups linked to abortion-related family-planning services.

The gag rule does not directly ban abortion-related services in aid-receiving communities but, rather, links major funding from USAID to strict rules on avoiding facilitation or promotion of abortion in any way. USAID is currently a dominant contributor to global family-planning programs, supporting some $600 million in grants for service providers within a multibillion-dollar framework of global health aid. Trump’s gag rule revives Reagan-era strictures on services, and expands them an estimated 16 times, according to the Global Fund for Women.

Continued: https://www.thenation.com/article/trumps-abortion-gag-rule-is-hurting-reproductive-rights-around-the-globe/

Uganda/Kenya: Cruel Choices: How Trump’s Global Gag Rule Hurts the Fight Against HIV

Cruel Choices: How Trump’s Global Gag Rule Hurts the Fight Against HIV

By: skye wheeler
Dec 7, 2017

Pamela was 13 years old when both her parents died in the 1990s as the AIDS pandemic inflicted death across East Africa. She sold sex to keep herself and her three younger siblings fed and alive. When she got pregnant she had no real choice but to get an abortion. Abortion is illegal in most instances in Uganda. Her second of three backstreet abortions almost killed her.

Now 24, Pamela [not her real name] works for a sex worker-led organization, fighting for women’s rights, sex workers’ rights, and access to anti-retroviral drugs and other lifesaving health care for her organization’s members. The job provides her with income, but also the satisfaction of working to increase choices for women and to minimize the risk of harm she knows from personal experience.

Continued at source: http://womensenews.org/2017/12/cruel-choices-how-trumps-global-gag-rule-hurts-the-fight-against-hiv/

Trump Policy Harming Kenya, Uganda Health Services

US: Trump Policy Harming Kenya, Uganda Health Services
October 26, 2017
Expanded ‘Mexico City’ Policy Causing Cuts in HIV, Reproductive Care

On his first full day in office, US President Donald Trump issued an expanded “Global Gag Rule,” or “Mexico City Policy,” which strips foreign nongovernmental organizations of all US health funding if they use funds from any source to offer information about abortions, provide abortions, or advocate liberalizing abortion laws.

(Washington, DC) – Early effects of United States restrictions to global health aid include cuts to essential health services in Kenya and Uganda, Human Rights Watch said in a letter to US Secretary of State Rex Tillerson that was released today. The changes have resulted in a loss of training and equipment from nongovernmental groups for government health clinics, and widespread confusion about implementation. Human Rights Watch sent its findings in advance of a six-month review by the State Department of these funding restrictions.

Continued at source: https://www.hrw.org/news/2017/10/26/us-trump-policy-harming-kenya-uganda-health-services

When Antiabortion Ideology Turns into Foreign Policy: How the Global Gag Rule Erodes Health, Ethics and Democracy

When Antiabortion Ideology Turns into Foreign Policy: How the Global Gag Rule Erodes Health, Ethics and Democracy

Sneha Barot
Guttmacher Institute
First published online: June 8, 2017

HIGHLIGHTS

The Trump administration reimposed and expanded the global gag rule to block U.S. global health assistance to all foreign nongovernmental organizations that use their own funding to engage in abortion-related services or advocacy.

This ideologically driven policy undermines the very goals of U.S. foreign aid programs by harming the health of people in poor countries, violating medical ethics and trampling on democratic values.

Continued at source: Guttmacher Institute: https://www.guttmacher.org/gpr/2017/06/when-antiabortion-ideology-turns-foreign-policy-how-global-gag-rule-erodes-health-ethics

The Ripple Effect Of Cuts To U.S. Funds For Overseas Abortion Services

The Ripple Effect Of Cuts To U.S. Funds For Overseas Abortion Services

May 19, 2017
Rina Shaikh-Lesko

The newly-released details of the Trump administration's version of the "Mexico City policy" are raising many questions about its impact not only on abortion but also on preventing HIV and infectious diseases like malaria.

The policy is named for the place where it was introduced by President Ronald Reagan, at a U.N. conference, in 1984. The aim was to cut off U.S. funding to nongovernmental organizations that "perform or actively promote abortion as a method of family planning."

Continued at source: NPR: http://www.npr.org/sections/goatsandsoda/2017/05/19/528778797/the-ripple-effect-of-cuts-to-u-s-funds-for-overseas-abortion-services