Ask Obama to End the Global Gag Rule

[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_FK2pzLAdgQ&feature=player_embedded[/youtube]

A brief history:

The U.S. government has been playing ping pong with women’s lives globally for almost three decades, ever since Ronald Reagan first declared the “Mexico City Policy” by executive order (without a Congressional vote).

Bill Clinton reversed the policy, by then known as the Global Gag Rule, the day he was inaugurated in 1993.

George W. Bush’s first official act when he was inaugurated in January, 2001 was to reinstate the Global Gag Rule in even more stringent terms, meaning that fewer and fewer of the most capable international family planning organizations could be–or wanted to be–eligible for U. S. preventive family planning funds. According to the website Access Denied:

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Called the “gag” rule because it stifles free speech and public debate on abortion-related issues, the policy forces a cruel choice on foreign NGOs: accept U.S. assistance to provide essential health services – but with restrictions that may jeopardize the health of many patients – or reject the policy and lose vital U.S. funds, contraceptive supplies and technical assistance.

Our continuing research shows the gag rule is eroding family planning and reproductive health services in developing countries. There is no evidence that it has reduced the incidence of abortion globally. On the contrary, it impedes the very services that help women avoid unwanted pregnancy from the start.

These funds do not pay for abortion services. So the upshot is that millions of the world’s neediest and most vulnerable women could not get birth control. Doesn’t make sense? You’re right. And women have died as a result of this abuse of power.

That’s why the petition discussed in Engender Health‘s video above was started to ask Barack Obama to once again rescind the rule.

But we can’t stop there. Organizations like the Sierra Club urge passage of the Global Democracy Protection Act to end this outrageous ping pong game once and for all.

Please watch the video and sign the petition.

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