Another one of President Trump’s first acts in office was to restore a policy preventing recipients of American foreign aid from performing or counseling on abortions.
The policy — known as the Mexico City Policy by its proponents for the location of a United Nations meeting where President Ronald Reagan first announced it in 1984 — has been in effect during successive Republican administrations and revoked under Democratic ones.
President George W. Bush last reinstated the policy in 2001 in an Executive order that rescinded President Bill Clinton’s Executive order issued in 1993. President Barack Obama reversed the order again shortly after taking office in 2009.
As reinstated under Trump, the policy requires foreign nongovernmental agencies to certify that they will not “perform or actively promote abortion as a method of family planning” using funds from any source (including non-U.S. funds) as a condition of receiving family planning assistance and any other U.S. global health assistance.
The policy also affects global relief under the President’s Emergency Plan for AIDS Relief, instituted under President George H.W. Bush, as well as maternal and child health assistance.
The latest move could impact at least $500 million in U.S. Agency for International Development funding for family planning and reproductive health. Opponents, who refer to the policy as the global gag rule, have been swift to denounce the President’s action.
Senator Jeanne Shaheen (NH-D) stated: “We know that when family planning services and contraceptives are easily accessible, there are fewer unplanned pregnancies, maternal deaths, and abortions, and when women have control over their reproductive health, it improves the long-term health of mothers and children and creates a lasting economic benefit.”
Speaker of the House Paul Ryan (WI-R) praised the policy’s reinstatement, saying that it will “ensure American taxpayers are not forced to subsidize abortions anywhere in the world.”
For more background on Federal funding for reproductive health programs, see the October 2015 issue of Congressional Digest on “Planned Parenthood Funding.”
