The Terrifying Global Reach of the American Anti-Abortion Movement

Conservatives have not limited their attack on reproductive rights to the United States. They’ve been busy imposing their will on other countries, too—with disastrous consequences for millions of poor women.

Jodi Enda
March 18, 2024

Because Editar Ochieng knew the three young men, she didn’t think twice when they beckoned her into a house in an isolated area near the Nairobi River. One was like a brother; the other two were her neighbors in the sprawling Kenyan slum of Kibera.

Ochieng did not know the woman who performed her abortion. She and a friend scoured Nairobi until they found her, an untrained practitioner who worked in the secrecy of her home and charged a fraction of what a medical professional would. Mostly, what Ochieng remembers is the agony when this stranger inserted something into her vagina and “pierced” her womb. “It was really very painful. Really, really, really painful,” she told me. Afterward, Ochieng said, she cut up her mattress to use in place of sanitary pads, which she could not afford. She was 16 years old.

Continued: https://newrepublic.com/article/179485/american-anti-abortion-movement-terrifying-global-reach


Will U.S. Abortion Wars End a Successful Foreign Policy in Africa?

Conservatives in Washington have blocked the reauthorization of PEPFAR, endangering the health of HIV-positive Africans.

By Nosmot Gbadamosi
NOVEMBER 1, 2023

The Most Successful U.S. International Health Policy Is Unraveling
Fierce opposition from conservative lawmakers is casting doubt on the future of PEPFAR, the U.S. government’s most successful global-health program, which was set up two decades ago by the George W. Bush administration to address the HIV epidemic.

Since 2003, PEPFAR, the President’s Emergency Plan for AIDS Relief, has funded antiretroviral treatment for more than 20 million people across more than 50 countries in its 20-year existence. The project has donated about $110 billion to health projects globally, yet a decision to fund the program’s next five-year cycle has become embroiled in the domestic abortion debate. Authorization for PEPFAR lapsed at the end of September after it failed to get congressional approval.

Continued: https://foreignpolicy.com/2023/11/01/bush-pepfar-africa-aids-abortion-wars-end-a-successful-foreign-policy-in-africa/


U.S. Overturn of Roe Will Embolden Anti-Abortion Movements Abroad

11/29/2022
by MICHELLE ONELLO

The U.S. Supreme Court’s decision in Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization, which ruled that there is no U.S. constitutional right to abortion, will have ripple effects around the world, according to the International Center for Research on Women’s (ICRW) policy brief, “U.S. Foreign Policy Implications of Overturning Roe v. Wade.” While Dobbs did not change existing U.S. foreign policy regarding abortion, the brief argues that it will embolden anti-abortion movements abroad, contribute to global stigmatization of abortion, cause confusion for policy implementation and open the door for new restrictions—all of which will negatively impact the health, economic resources and well-being of women throughout the world. 

Dobbs is a reminder that current U.S. foreign aid restrictions “are not aligned with best health care practices nor consistent with human rights and bodily autonomy principles.”

Continued: https://msmagazine.com/2022/11/29/us-overturn-roe-v-wade-abortion-abroad-foreign-policy-helms-amendment-global-gag-rule/


In Hospitals Across Africa, A Lack Of Post-Abortion Care

March 9, 2021
PATRICK ADAMS

Some of Onikepe Owolabi's most vivid memories of medical school in her native Nigeria are of the teenage girls she saw in the emergency room of a rural hospital with complications from an unsafe abortion — painful infections that, if left untreated, can lead to permanent disability or even death.

Each time, Owolabi, now a senior research scientist with the Guttmacher Institute, a nonprofit reproductive rights organization in the U.S. that supports abortion rights, assisted doctors in promptly providing the girls with a group of essential obstetric services known collectively as "post-abortion care," or PAC.

Continued: https://www.npr.org/sections/goatsandsoda/2021/03/09/936206516/in-hospitals-across-africa-a-lack-of-post-abortion-care


The Biden Administration Is Repealing the Global Gag Rule. That’s Not Enough.

The chilling effect doesn’t go away just because a Democrat is in office.

By JOSHUA KEATING
JAN 28, 2021

On Thursday, Joe Biden is expected to participate in what’s become a regular post-inauguration ritual for U.S. presidents by signing an executive order repealing the Mexico City Policy, known by its opponents as the global gag rule, which prohibits U.S. funding to foreign nongovernmental organizations that provide abortion counseling or referrals. The policy is a textbook case of how the lives of people thousands of miles away can be directly affected by America’s culture wars. And while Biden’s move will be applauded by reproductive rights advocates and family planning service providers around the world, the uncertainty and instability the rule introduced will be hard to erase.

Continued: https://slate.com/news-and-politics/2021/01/biden-global-gag-rule-mexico-city-policy.html


White House Installs Anti-Abortion Loyalist at USAID

Across federal agencies, the Trump administration is seeding the government with ideologues meant to advance hard-line policies.

By Colum Lynch, Robbie Gramer
July 14, 2020

The Trump White House has added another political loyalist and anti-abortion advocate to its roster of political hires at America’s premier international development agency, expanding the role and influence of the religious right in shaping U.S. priorities on global health and development, U.S. officials told Foreign Policy.

Patrina Mosley, who has been named advisor to the director of the Center of Excellence on Democracy, Human Rights, and Governance at the U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID), is an outspoken anti-abortion advocate who recently accused the United Nations and the World Health Organization (WHO) of using the coronavirus pandemic to promote abortions—a claim the U.N. calls patently false.

Continued: https://foreignpolicy.com/2020/07/14/trump-anti-abortion-foreign-aid-development-white-house-installs-loyalist-usaid/


Another Egregious Attack on Reproductive Health by Trump Administration

Another Egregious Attack on Reproductive Health by Trump Administration
Undermining access to reproductive health services during COVID-19 is cruel and detrimental to women’s health and well-being.

5/26/2020
by Anu Kumar

The Trump Administration’s latest attempt to roll back reproductive rights and deny essential health care is yet another step toward realizing their extreme anti-rights agenda.

In a letter to the United Nations (U.N.), John Barsa, the acting administrator for the U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID), has asked for all references to sexual and reproductive health to be removed from the UN’s Global Humanitarian Response Plan (Global HRP).

Continued: https://msmagazine.com/2020/05/26/another-egregious-attack-on-reproductive-health-by-trump-administration/


How US government restrictions on foreign aid for abortion services backfired

How US government restrictions on foreign aid for abortion services backfired

Sep 2019, Policy Brief
By Grant Miller, Eran Bendavid, and Nina Brooks

Abortion is an issue that stirs up deeply felt passions and seems to offer little basis for compromise. But there is one thing that both sides of the debate agree on — fewer abortions are better. The pro-life side opposes abortion in principle, while pro-choice advocates generally hold that preventing unwanted pregnancies is preferable to terminating them.

That shared outlook could provide common ground on one of the most important federal initiatives concerning abortion — the Mexico City Policy. This executive order, announced in 1984 by the Reagan administration at the United Nations International Conference on Population and Development, requires all foreign nongovernmental organizations that get U.S. family planning assistance to certify they will not perform abortions or provide counseling about the procedure.

Continued: https://siepr.stanford.edu/research/publications/how-us-government-restrictions-foreign-aid-abortion-services-backfired


Trump’s foreign aid policies endanger women, experts say

Trump's foreign aid policies endanger women, experts say
“If it was done at the end of a gun, it would be denounced before the International Criminal Court,” the U.N. human rights commissioner said.

July 2, 2019
By Linda Givetash

LONDON — Caroline Nyandat will never forget the day she watched a 14-year-old girl die due to complications from an unsafe abortion.

Nyandat, 36, was then completing her training as a nurse midwife in Kisumu, Kenya, when the teen was in need of surgery but suffered from sepsis before doctors in the hospital could react.

Continued: https://www.nbcnews.com/news/world/trump-s-foreign-aid-policies-endanger-women-experts-say-n1018056


Exporting Censorship: How U.S. Restrictions on Abortion Speech and Funding Violate International Law, Part 2

Exporting Censorship: How U.S. Restrictions on Abortion Speech and Funding Violate International Law, Part 2
May 7, 2018
Akila Radhakrishnan & Kristin Smith

Part 2: The Global Gag Rule and Freedom of Association

This is the second of a two-part post illustrating how U.S. abortion restrictions violate the ICCPR’s requirements for lawful restrictions on the freedom of speech and association, which is examined in more detail in the Global Justice Center’s recent brief. Although the Helms and Siljander Amendments (discussed in Part 1) also violate the freedom of association in various ways, this post focuses on the Global Gag Rule and its unique effects on the freedom of association.

Continued: https://ilg2.org/2018/05/07/exporting-censorship-how-u-s-restrictions-on-abortion-speech-and-funding-violate-international-law-part-2/