Q&A: What next for humanitarians and the global gag rule?

“There’s an earthquake. There’s somebody who’s been raped. You need to help the people, not check their credentials on the global gag.”

2 February 2026
Irwin Loy

Chaos, confusion, and more ethical dilemmas: Humanitarians are still trying to understand the impacts of a sweeping expansion to the so-called “global gag rule” on US funding.

The Trump administration expanded the on-again, off-again anti-abortion care directive known as the Mexico City policy to include nearly all foreign assistance, including humanitarian funding sent through UN agencies and international and local aid groups. The rules – announced on 23 January and published last week – also slap vague bans on programmes related to diversity and equity, and gender identity.

Continued: https://www.thenewhumanitarian.org/interview/2026/02/02/qa-what-next-humanitarians-and-global-gag-rule

02.02.2026

Interviews/Podcasts

Beth Schlachter

diversity equity and inclusion

MSI Reproductive Choices

‘Trojan horse moment’: anti-rights groups seize chance to fill void left by US aid cuts

Ultra-conservative Christian organisations look to reshape global health landscape as new aid agreements open door to demands restricting family planning services

Isabel Choat
Wed 17 Dec 2025

The sudden stop work order on USAID in January 2025 sent shock waves around the world. Many health clinics were immediately shut down, leaving millions without access to vital medicines and facilities, with potentially deadly consequences, especially for HIV patients, children, and women and adolescent girls.

To many, the subsequent axing of 83% of USAID programmes seemed like pure nihilism, engineered by ideologues who wanted to kill off the agency. But there was a long-term vision behind the destruction. The gutting of USAID has cleared a path for the next phase of a plan to reshape the global health landscape, say reproductive justice campaigners.

Continued: https://www.theguardian.com/world/2025/dec/17/trojan-horse-moment-anti-rights-groups-fill-void-us-aid-cuts

Trump plans to block funding to groups that promote diversity policies abroad

The administration wants to expand a policy that already restricts U.S. funding to foreign groups that promote abortion access.

By Carmen Paun and Nahal Toosi

Oct 1, 2025

The Trump administration plans to block U.S. funding to organizations that do work abroad on issues related to gender identity and diversity, according to a U.S. official and nonprofit groups informed of the plan.

It’s a major expansion of the Mexico City Policy, which prevents foreign groups receiving U.S. global health funding from providing or promoting abortion, even if those programs are paid for with other sources of financing.

Continued: https://www.politico.com/news/2025/10/01/trump-plans-block-funding-groups-promote-diversity-policies-abroad-00591078

01.10.2025

News

Beth Schlachter

Global Gag Rule

Global Health Council

Mexico City policy

MSI Reproductive Choices

The U.S. said it would burn $9.7 million of birth control. Its fate is still unclear

September 16, 2025
By Rachel Treisman

For months, $9.7 million worth of birth control meant for women in low-income countries has sat stranded in a Belgian warehouse — apparently destined for destruction — as a result of the Trump administration's freeze on foreign aid.

…Humanitarians' hopes were seemingly dashed last week, when the New York Times, citing a statement from USAID, reported that the contraceptives had been destroyed. But the next day, it later reported, Belgian authorities entered the warehouse and confirmed the contraceptives were still there.

Continued: https://www.npr.org/sections/goats-and-soda/2025/09/16/nx-s1-5511304/birth-control-foreign-aid-destruction-belgium-warehouse

The Trump administration’s destruction of contraceptives was both wasteful and cruel

U.S. officials had already spent nearly $10 million on contraceptives intended for low-income nations. They will never reach their intended target.

Sept. 12, 2025
By Steve Benen

Federal officials had already spent nearly $10 million on birth control pills, intrauterine devices and hormonal implants to be sent to low-income nations. As The New York Times reported, however, the products will never reach their intended destination — not because the beneficiaries no longer want the assistance, but because the Trump administration destroyed what U.S. taxpayers had already paid for.

The destruction of the millions of dollars’ worth of products itself cost roughly $167,000. The Times’ report noted that several international organizations, including the Gates Foundation and the Children’s Investment Fund Foundation, had offered to buy or accept a donation of the contraceptives.

Continued: https://www.msnbc.com/rachel-maddow-show/maddowblog/trump-administrations-destruction-contraceptives-was-both-wasteful-cru-rcna230834

12.09.2025

News

Beth Schlachter

Children’s Investment Fund Foundation

Donald Trump

Gates Foundation

MSI Reproductive Choices

A tale of two conferences: women against women as ‘poison of patriarchy’ returns and abortion fight intensifies

Last week, anti-choice campaigners emboldened by current US politics met in New York at the same time as UN delegates gathered to address the widespread inequalities women face. The battle to protect rights has never felt more urgent

Isabel Choat in New York, The Guardian
Sat 22 Mar 2025

In a meeting room on the 27th floor of a swish Manhattan hotel, Denise Mountenay is telling the audience that the right to abortion is “Nazi thinking.” Mountenay regrets her own abortions, and says she has been called by God to spread the word that she and other women “were lied to, deceived, pressured into making the most horrible choice: to choose death instead of life”.

She goes on to list reasons why abortion is “not a safe procedure. [That’s what] they want woman to think – that is a lie.” Many of her claims, including that abortion leads to breast cancer, have been thoroughly disproved by scientific studies.

Continued: https://www.theguardian.com/global-development/2025/mar/22/women-rights-un-anti-abortion-choice-poison-of-patriarchy-returns

22.03.2025

Commentary

69th Commission on the Status of Women

anti-choice bullshit

anti-choice cruelty

anti-choice deception

Campaign Life Coalition

International Planned Parenthood Federation

MSI Reproductive Choices

Nelly Munyasia

Oxfam

Pan-African Conference on Family Values

Project 2025

Richard and Helen DeVos Centre for Life

sexual and reproductive health and rights

Sima Bahous

Southern Poverty Law Center

Weaponizing Aid: How U.S. Policies Undermine Reproductive Health in Humanitarian Crises

U.S. restrictions on foreign aid like the global gag rule are endangering women and girls by cutting off access to essential reproductive healthcare in humanitarian crises.

2/18/2025
by Ira Memaj

Shortly after taking office, the Trump administration issued a cascade of executive orders—among them, the reinstatement of the Mexico City Policy, commonly referred to as the global gag rule (GGR). The GGR restricts U.S. funding for international nongovernmental organizations (NGOs) that provide, refer for, lobby or counsel on abortion care. While much has been covered about the GGR’s adverse effects on global health and NGOs, its impact on vulnerable populations in humanitarian settings, particularly refugee women and girls, has received less attention.

In 2024, a record 122.6 million people worldwide were forcibly displaced due to climate change, political unrest, persecution and armed conflict. More than 90 million women and girls are expected to require humanitarian aid, including sexual and reproductive health services, such as perinatal and abortion care, gender-based violence (GBV) support, and STI screening and treatment.

Continued: https://msmagazine.com/2025/02/18/us-global-gag-rule-refugee-women-healthcare-crisis-trump/

USAID’s reproductive health funding has saved millions of lives. Now it’s gone.

For decades, USAID’s family planning program was the main source for contraception and HIV treatment in some countries. Experts say without it, women and LGBTQ+ people will die.

Jessica Kutz
February 7, 2025

On Sunday, Elon Musk, the world’s richest man, boasted that he was gutting the federal agency tasked with providing foreign aid to its poorest. “We spent the weekend feeding USAID into the wood chipper,” Musk, the tech billionaire head of the so-called Department of Government Efficiency, posted on his social media platform, X.

The United States Agency for International Development (USAID) was established in 1961 to provide foreign assistance to impoverished countries around the world through food aid and humanitarian and economic development work. It is also one of the world’s largest providers of contraception through its family planning program. According to the Congressional Research Service, the agency’s funding in 2023 was about $40 billion, which represented less than 1 percent of the federal budget.

Continued: https://19thnews.org/2025/02/usaid-women-lgbtq-reproductive-health-funding-pause/

Global health charities warn of ‘huge and terrible’ threat to abortion rights if Trump returns

‘Global gag rule’ and funding cuts will be ‘on different scale’ if Republicans win again, family-planning providers say

Kat Lay, Global health correspondent
Fri 16 Aug 2024

Providers of women’s healthcare around the world are preparing for potentially disastrous consequences should Donald Trump win the US presidential election in November.

Policies pursued during Trump’s last presidency caused “devastating” harm in a number of countries, said Beth Schlachter, a senior director at MSI Reproductive Choices in the US. It meant “clinics shuttered, health teams closed, women dying … but a second Trump term will be on a different scale”.

Continued: https://www.theguardian.com/global-development/article/2024/aug/16/global-health-charities-warning-threat-global-gag-rule-abortion-rights-family-planning-women-trump-project-2025

There’s a new surveillance state – and women are the target

Period tracking apps, car licence plate data and pregnancy registers are the latest tools experts warn are being harnessed to monitor women

By Harriet Barber, GLOBAL HEALTH REPORTER
7 October 2022

Surveillance data and technology are being exploited to stoke fear and prevent abortions in countries including the United States, China, Hungary and Poland.

Period tracking apps, car licence plate data and pregnancy registers are the latest tools activists warn are being harnessed to stop women using legal or geographic loopholes for terminations. All four countries have reversed abortion rights over the past two years.

Continued: https://www.telegraph.co.uk/global-health/women-and-girls/new-abortion-surveillance-state-keeping-tabs-women/