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The price of US aid – sign the petition to lift abortion restrictions

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Sheree Sartain
WVoN co-editor

Overseas aid provided by the US comes at a price for women who want an abortion.

About 20 million women in the developing world seek abortions from unsafe providers each year. Millions are injured and 67,000 lose their lives as a consequence.

According to the Global Justice Centre thousands of girls and women raped and impregnated in armed conflict are routinely denied critically needed abortions in places like the Democratic Republic of Congo, Burma and Sudan, despite hundreds of millions of dollars in humanitarian aid made available to victims in conflict.

The major reason is the blanket abortion restrictions the US places on all its foreign assistance, including humanitarian aid.

IPAS which campaigns for women’s reproductive health claims that US foreign policy harms efforts to make abortion safe, denies health-care providers access to lifesaving equipment and censors information about abortion.

The restrictions on US aid derive from two key pieces of legislation. First, the Helms amendment and second the Global Gag Rule (or the Mexico City Policy).

The US policy against abortion-related foreign aid was first instituted in 1973 as the Helms Amendement to the Foreign Assistance Act.

This limited the direct funding of abortion for family planning purposes but the legislation has been conservatively interpreted and as a consequence, no US aid money has been used to fund abortions even when they are conducted on medical grounds.

Under President Ronald Reagan, the “Mexico City policy” introduced further controls and limited aid to organisations and governments who used their own money to provide abortions.

This was later abolished by President Clinton, reinstated by President George W. Bush, and then abolished again by President Obama three days after his inauguration.

The Global Gag Rule is currently in abeyance but in July this year a bill was introduced in congress for its reinstatement. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton has spoken out against it saying that it would work against her efforts to carry out a considered foreign policy and to use foreign assistance strategically.

The Helms Amendment is still in effect and the Global Justice Center has launched its “August 12 Campaign” to mark the 62nd Anniversary of the Geneva Convention by urging President Obama to issue an executive order lifting US abortion restrictions on humanitarian aid for girls and women raped in armed conflict.

There are only three days left to sign the petition in this important campaign for womne’s reproductive health.

  1. We see pictures of starving children who have no chance of a quality of life and the women who are powerless to take care of them. Denying safe abortions to women who choose not to have a pregnancy to term is evil and destroys a countries ability to thrive. All the money in the world sent in food aid, much of which is purportedly stolen and sold on the black market, will not solve the source problem. Denying safe abortions is abuse with much deeper lasting problems than the horror of rape.

    • Should there be restrictions placed on aid? Should the country receiving it not feel free to do as they please with it? Genuine question, I am wondering which is better – to give with limits and restrictions which are possibly circumvented, or give freely and know that financial aid may go to purchasing things that the givers may not like.

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