The Global Gang Rule: What Does It Tell Us About Abortion? Evidence from a Study in Madagascar, which argues that the Mexico City Policy benefited a lot of reproductive health

In addition to finding that the ban produced a 40% increase in a country’s typical abortion rate during the period when the Mexico City policy was in place, the authors found a 14% decrease in the use of contraception and a 12% increase in pregnancies”.

Because the policy prohibits even discussion of abortion with patients, groups that favor abortion rights call it “the global gag rule.” Elizabeth Sully, a research scientist at the Guttmacher Institute, which supports abortion rights, said that it makes it hard for organizations in their own countries to say anything about abortion.

The rule encourages healthcare providers in lower resource countries to focus on alternatives to abortion, according to supporters of the rule.

Elyssa Koren, legal communications director for ADF International, an advocacy group that doesn’t support abortions, says it promotes what developing countries need instead of what they don’t.

Every newly elected Democratic president and every newly elected Republican president have abolished the policy since the policy was first instituted. On the third day of his administration, Trump brought the policy back.

Before Trump’s change, the policy had affected around $600 million of U.S. aid to family planning and reproductive health groups, says Nabeeha Kazi Hutchins president of PAI, Population Action International, a group that supports abortion rights.

Groups that want to continue offering abortion counseling or services have in the past lost their U.S. funding. In 2017, NPR interviewed representatives of MSI, Marie Stopes International, a global charity that offers contraception and abortion services in 36 countries. Their Madagascar director told NPR that the loss of U.S. aid meant the group could no longer offer free contraceptives and had to shut down 21 of its 22 mobile contraceptive clinics in the island nation, which is part of sub-Saharan Africa.

The funding ban was in place for eight years, and the Clinton and Obama administrations both lifted it during that time.

The idea is that countries receiving a large amount of aid per person would likely be more vulnerable to changes in the policies governing U.S. aid. The researchers decided to compare the abortion rates in aid-reliant countries with those in less dependent on the U.S. funds for family planning and found that the funding ban had an effect on abortion rates.

According to the Family Research Council which supported the Mexico City policy for a long time, the study did not explore which aid groups were operating in which areas, which is why it is unconvincing. He says he was looking for more information.

On Friday, the State Department issued a cable putting into action the January 20th executive order from President Donald Trump that will halt virtually all U.S. foreign assistance for at least 90 days pending a review of all programs. The only exceptions are emergency humanitarian assistance and military financing for Israel and Egypt.

Konyndyk is a top official with the US Agency for international Development during the Obama and Biden administrations and the president of the aid group Refugees International. “As written, the stop-work order does not exempt global health programs,” Jeremy Konyndyk wrote to NPR in an email.

Unless an exemption is declared in the days or weeks ahead, PEPFAR faces a pause in operations for at least three months — a development that sent shock waves through the global health community.

It would jeopardize millions of people currently on US-funded AIDS treatment if this happened, Konyndyk said.

The salaries of hundreds of contractors who work at the global health bureau of the agency could be stopped temporarily because of the freeze on spending.

The workers’ employment status wouldn’t be certain for the duration of the stop-work period, and that could cause them to leave, which could lead to a loss of experience and knowledge.

A response to Russell’s “Death of the 90-Day Freeze” on HIV/AIDS AIDS in the Global Health Sector”

The quickness of the order surprised many in the global health sector. “Many people assumed the 90-day freeze would apply to forward looking funding only,” Asia Russell, executive director of the HIV access organization Health GAP, told NPR.

She said an immediate cessation was much more cruel than the one that would be harmful. He’s doing terrible harm to the global AIDS response.