Trump’s ‘gag order’ again bars doctors from giving pregnant patients the facts

Colin Stewart is a 45-year journalism veteran living in Southern…

No more U.S. funds for overseas programs that provide abortions or even mention abortions

A doctor at Family Health Options Kenya serves a patient. Eight years ago, the organization decided to continued its counseling services even though that meant it would lose U.S. aid and force it to cut its health-care services in half. (Photo courtesy of The Star) — A doctor at Family Health Options Kenya serves a patient. Eight years ago, the organization decided to continue its counseling services even though that meant it would lose U.S. aid and force it to cut its health-care services in half. (Photo courtesy of The Star)

Just as he did when he first became president in 2017, Donald Trump yesterday imposed a “global gag order” that bars U.S. funds from going to any overseas program that provides abortions or whose employees even mention abortion when counseling pregnant clients.

The decree has widespread impact not only on health organizations that provide abortions but also on ones that merely counsel pregnant women about the range of choices they face.

The last time Trump imposed this funding cut, it resulted in thousands of vulnerable people losing access to health services. This site’s articles about the previous aid cutoff were headlined “Trump’s gag order denies anti-AIDS services to 10,000+” and “Trump ‘gag rule’ hurts AIDS battle in Kenya, Uganda“.

Anti-abortion advocates describe Trump’s decree not as a “gag rule” but as action to end “forced taxpayer funding of elective abortions”. For example, the Fox News article about the presidential decree was headlined “Trump … separates taxpayer dollars and abortions”, while the Catholic News Agency wrote, “Trump reinstates ‘Mexico City policy’ ban on funding international abortions“.

ABC News reported the story as follows:

Trump bans funding for groups that aid abortion overseas, will enforce Hyde Amendment

President Trump signed an order Friday [Jan. 24] reinstating a policy that requires foreign nongovernmental agencies to certify that they don’t provide or promote abortion if they receive U.S. federal funds for family planning assistance.

The position, sometimes called the Mexico City Policy and referred to by opponents as the “global gag rule,” was first introduced more than 40 years ago. Every Republican president has put it in effect, and every Democrat has rescinded it.

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Eight years ago, the first Trump administration not only brought back the prohibition but also broadened it to include organizations that comply with the rules but give money to others that don’t.

Advocates [of wider access to health care] say the policy, coupled with a law that bars U.S. money from paying for abortion around the globe, has a major impact on abortion availability worldwide — and also blocks aid money from flowing to health organizations for other purposes. They say it hurts reproductive and maternal health care in developing nations by cutting funds to groups that offer critical non-abortion related services, including birth control, nutritional support for infants and HIV/AIDS treatment.

Trump also signed an executive order Friday requiring the enforcement of the Hyde Amendment, which restricts government funding for most [domestic] abortions.