global gag rule

A health worker in Togo, supported by the US, discussing family planning choices with local women. Trump’s new budget proposal would continue to restrict money for reproductive health sharply, “to suit the antichoice crowd” in the US electorate, the writer says. USAID
Whether or not Donald Trump will be re-elected president on Nov. 3, a tough debate is likely to begin soon in the United States Congress over the national budget for the unpredictable year ahead. Reproductive health issues rank high on the agenda for women’s rights advocates.

This year, the status of women on many fronts, from political involvement to personal justice, will be evaluated in international forums. It is widely recognized, for starters, that women in poor countries need more access to information on basic health care for themselves and their families. Here, polio vaccination in Afghanistan. CREATIVE COMMONS

The Trump administration and its allies in the US Congress have again refused to end their severe restrictions on aid to health programs for women globally, including a repeal of the global gag rule. A protest in the US, above, to protect women’s reproductive rights. CREATIVE COMMONS
For the third year, the Trump administration and its Republican allies in the United States Congress are refusing to abandon their harsh restrictions on aid to health programs for women around the world.

Andrew Bremberg, Trump’s nominee for US ambassador to the UN in Geneva, testified before the Senate Foreign Relations Committee on June 20, 2019. Aspects of his anti-abortion views, whether rape victims should be entitled to abortions, infuriated Senator Bob Menendez, the highest-ranking Democrat on the committee. Bremberg, above, in 2018. GAGE SKIDMORE/WIKIMEDIA COMMONS

The US State Department has created a new commission to advise Secretary of State Pompeo, above, on redefining policies aligned with “natural law and natural rights.” For human-rights advocates, the language suggests ominous religious and other overtones. RON PRZYSUCHA/STATE DEPARTMENT

Critical needs arrive for the 45,000 or so Syrian refugees stuck in Rukban camp, near the Jordan border, with most residents women and children. A new bill from the US House of Representatives may overturn Trump-Pence policies that deny women and girls in poor nations and conflict zones access to reproductive health care. UNHCR

US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo with President Trump at lunch with Vietnamese Prime Minister Nguyen Xuan Phuc in Hanoi, Feb. 27, 2019. Pompeo and Trump marked international women’s month in March by actively eroding the reproductive health rights of women globally. RON PRZYSUCHA/STATE DEPARTMENT
Here’s how the United States government marked the 2019 monthlong celebration of the world’s women in March:

In August, 2017, more than half a million Rohingya refugees flooded across the border from Burma to Bangladesh to escape violence in Rakhine State, including pregnant women and children. The United States gave about $28 million in food and other goods, but the government’s global gag rule banned family planning aid, violating women’s rights, say the authors. ASHIQUE RUSHDI/USAID