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Pregnant Women Overseas Lose Access to Pre-Natal Care Due to Trump's 'Global
Gag Rule'

Brian Padden

   WASHINGTON - Medical providers say some pregnant women in developing
   countries have lost access to prenatal health care because of the Trump
   administration's expanded "global gag rule" that cut aid to
   international organizations involved in abortion-related activities.

   A recent study in the Lancet Global Health journal also reports that
   abortions actually increased in Africa when these aid restrictions were
   enacted in the past.

   U.S. President Donald Trump in 2017 reinstated the partisan "global gag
   rule," which blocks around $8.8 billion of U.S. international health
   assistance to organizations that provide abortion services, offer
   pro-abortion counseling or advocate for the liberalization of abortion
   laws.

   Also called the "Mexico City Policy," named after the city that hosted
   a 1984 United Nations population conference where it was first
   announced, the abortion-related restrictions have been enacted by
   Republican U.S. presidents since Ronald Reagan and repealed whenever
   Democrats occupied the White House.

   Closed clinics

   Since the Trump administration's reinstatement of the rule, a network
   of Kenyan family planning clinics called Family Health Options Kenya
   (FHOK) has closed or reduced services nationwide after losing $2
   million in U.S. funding, even though the organization does not perform
   abortions, which are illegal in the African country unless the mother's
   health is in danger.

   "The 'global gag rule' was also very comprehensive because it did not
   allow organizations even to provide family planning, which is basically
   our core mandate as an organization," said Amos Simpano, FHOK's
   director of clinical services.

   Before the loss of U.S. funding, FHOK had reached an estimated 76,000
   people annually in some of the Kenya's most impoverished regions.

   Family planning clinics in rural areas of the developing world are at
   times the only health providers for not only family planning and
   prenatal care, but also for HIV and cervical cancer screenings,
   tuberculosis and malaria treatments, children's vaccinations and
   contraceptives.

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