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ENDING THE GLOBAL GAG RULE:
On July 29, the Senate Appropriations Committee adopted an amendment sponsored by Senator Frank Lautenberg (D-NJ) permanently repealing the notorious Global Gag Rule. President Reagan imposed the original version of the Global Gag Rule (also known as the Mexico City Policy) in 1985. It prevented international family planning organizations (non-governmental organizations, or NGOs) that receive US family planning funds from providing abortions, or abortion advice or referrals – even if paid out of other funds. The result was that many international family planning organizations reliant on US funding stopped providing abortion-related services – resulting in many more unsafe abortions and maternal deaths – or suffered severely reduced funding that required cutbacks in all family planning services – resulting in more unintended pregnancies and more abortions. Subsequent presidents have intermittently repealed it and reinstated it. Although President Obama repealed the Gag Rule in the first week of his presidency, the threat of the policy’s return continues to have a chilling effect on US family planning efforts overseas. The Lautenberg amendment, which passed by a vote of 19-11, is designed to prevent a future President from unilaterally reinstating the policy.
What you can do: Contact Senators Boxer and Feinstein and ask them to support the Lautenberg Amendment ending the Global Gag Rule in the Senate appropriations bill funding internationl family planning.
Contact information:
U.S. Senator Barbara Boxer: (202) 224.3553
Web email form: https://boxer.senate.gov/en/contact/policycomments.cfm
U.S. Senator Dianne Feinstein: (202) 224.3841 Fax: (202) 228.3954
Web email form: http://feinstein.senate.gov/public/index.cfm?FuseAction=ContactUs. EmailMe
