Experts Warn of 'Devastating Damage' From Trump Reinstating Global Gag Rule
"People worldwide will have fewer points of service," said Doctors Without Borders. "It means fewer safe places to talk about their health options, and fewer providers to go to for help during medical emergencies."
Reproductive rights and medical experts on Monday continued to warn that U.S. President Donald Trump's highly anticipated reinstatement of the Mexico City Policy, which bans nongovernmental organizations that perform or promote abortion from receiving federal funding, will cause "devastating damage" for people around the world.
The global gag rule (GGR), as it is called by critics, has been imposed by every Republican president for decades, including Trump during his first term. After returning to office a week ago, Trump on Friday signed an executive order "to end the use of federal taxpayer dollars to fund or promote elective abortion" and revived the controversial rule with a presidential memorandum.
"As the single largest funder of international aid, the U.S. plays a powerful role in shaping the global health landscape—and women's and girls' lives are being used as pawns in this political game," Dr. Carole Sekimpi wrote Monday for the British journal The BMJ. "My work overseeing reproductive health programs in Africa for MSI Reproductive Choices gives me an understanding of the profound consequences that this will have on communities that Trump will never set foot in."
"It's prudent to first understand that the U.S. government never funds abortions," Sekimpi stressed, noting the rule punishes groups that participate in anything abortion-related with separate funding. "Last time Trump was in power, MSI was among those that refused to accept the terms of this policy. The U.S. funding we lost would have allowed us to serve 8 million women, preventing 6 million unintended pregnancies, 1.8 million unsafe abortions, and 20,000 maternal deaths. And that was just one organization."
Ibis Reproductive Health president Kelly Blanchard and Evelyne Opondo, an Ibis board member and the International Center for Research on Women's Africa director, also emphasized in a Monday Medium post that the rule's impact "is felt keenly by organizations that provide comprehensive sexual and reproductive healthcare—including contraception and abortion care—around the world," such as MSI and International Planned Parenthood Federation, "who refuse to abide by the terms because they support the human rights of all people and will not withhold information or critical reproductive healthcare from individuals who need it."
"The GGR flies in the face of both human rights and evidence-based public health," the pair asserted. "The GGR does not prevent abortion from happening but rather increases barriers to abortion access, reduces access to contraception increasing risk of unintended pregnancy, and could actually increase unsafe abortion, a key driver of maternal deaths around the world."
Melanie Nezer, vice president for advocacy and external relations at the Women's Refugee Commission, similarly declared in a Monday statement denouncing the GGR, "Let us be clear: this policy will not protect lives—it will endanger them."
"The goal of the global gag rule is to curtail access to safe sexual and reproductive healthcare, including access to safe abortion," she said. "The result is more suffering from the consequences of conflict-related sexual violence, more unintended pregnancies, more unsafe abortions, and more maternal death that would otherwise be entirely preventable."
Reproductive rights groups worldwide were similarly critical of the decision on Friday and throughout the weekend, with Planned Parenthood Federation of America president and CEO Alexis McGill Johnson calling it "dangerous" and arguing that "elected officials should not be interfering in personal medical decisions, in this country or anywhere in the world."
Like the critics on Monday, Rachana Desai Martin, chief government and external relations officer at the Center for Reproductive Rights, pointed to the fallout from GGR during the Republican's first term and said that "the reinstatement and expansion of President Trump's global gag rule is a direct assault on the health and human rights of millions of people around the world."
Also recalling the first Trump administration, Guttmacher Institute acting co-CEO Destiny Lopez highlighted how her group's "research has documented its severe ripple effects, including stalling and even reversing progress in expanding access to modern contraception in countries like Ethiopia and Uganda."
"Now history will sadly and shamefully repeat itself, and people in many countries will find it harder to access safe abortion, contraception, and other critical health services," she said, vowing to track the impacts and work to repeal the harmful policy.
Reproductive Freedom for All president and CEO Mini Timmaraju also pledged to battle the GGR and other Republican attacks on choice, saying that "these policies inflict harm on those who need access to reproductive healthcare, including abortion, in our country, and around the world—and we will fight back."
Previewing the fight ahead, National Abortion Federation president and CEO Brittany Fonteno warned that the GGR "will not be the last" attack on reproductive healthcare, adding that "for nearly a decade now, Donald Trump has shown us just how dangerous he is for abortion access, and it is clear that over the next four years, the anti-abortion movement will take every opportunity to strip away our fundamental right to reproductive freedom—both here and abroad."
RealClearPolitics, the first to report the rule's revival, noted that "the president timed the release of his executive actions to coincide with the annual March for Life on Friday when some of his most ardent supporters rallied on the National Mall. Vice President JD Vance addressed the march in person, while Trump recorded a video message Thursday to be played at the Friday rally."
Although Trump said on the campaign trail that he thinks abortion policies should be decided at the state level, rights advocates have cited his extensive record of dishonesty and bragging about the role he played in overturning Roe v. Wade, and expressed fear that the Republican-controlled Congress will send a national abortion ban to his desk.
