- Post
- #1038640
- Topic
- Politics 2: Electric Boogaloo
- Link
- https://originaltrilogy.com/post/id/1038640/action/topic#1038640
- Time
http://www.vox.com/identities/2017/1/23/14356582/trump-global-gag-rule-abortion
The global gag rule goes much further than simply banning US foreign aid from paying for abortions directly — which is already the law, and which has its own detrimental consequences for women.
Instead, the gag rule tries to control how international organizations use their own funds, raised from other sources. Just like Republican efforts to defund Planned Parenthood in the United States, it’s an attempt to stop abortion from happening by forcing organizations that provide it to make a choice: stop providing or promoting abortion, or lose the large amounts of funding that you get from the US government to support your other medical services.
The reality is simple and brutal. Reinstating the global gag rule will not reduce abortions. Sub-Saharan Africa, for instance, had higher abortion rates after George W. Bush reinstated the gag rule, because it reduced women’s access to contraception and caused more unwanted pregnancies, which women then chose to terminate.
The gag rule will, however, lead to more women dying across the developing world. Marie Stopes International, a major global family planning organization, estimates that without alternative funding, the loss of its services alone will cause 6.5 million unintended pregnancies, 2.2 million abortions, 2.1 million unsafe abortions, and 21,700 maternal deaths just in Trump’s first term, from 2017 to 2020. The organization says it will also be prevented from reaching 1.5 million women with contraception every year.
Studies conducted by PAI have shown that every time the global gag rule returns, more women in developing countries bear unwanted pregnancies, die or become disabled due to unsafe abortions, or lose crucial medical care.
So much for respecting life.
Directed at personal use of one’s body ONLY, taking precautions or abstinence is every persons right and responsibility if they could not afford the possible outcome. In cases of medical necessity (life/death of fetus/mother) or sexual assault/attack, I would think they’d be wise enough to allow it. I’m not them nor am I privy to the actual details of all this gag rule encompasses so this is just my opinion based on information I know of.
If any organization mentions the word “abortion”, they can no longer have any American government funding, even for contraception. There is no wisdom to any of this. You can’t expect the entire third world to stop having sex because they can’t get condoms anymore.