Joe Biden can end the misery wrought across the world by the Global Gag Rule
While the world continues to process Donald Trump’s loss of the US presidency after a single term, something else will likely be thrown out of the White House with him when he leaves office: the so-called “Global Gag Rule”.
The Mexico City policy, originally implemented by Ronald Reagan’s administration in 1984, prohibits non-governmental organisations which provide, counsel on, refer to or advocate abortion services from receiving any US government funding, regardless of other services they may provide.
While it has been championed by the pro-life lobby and religious right in the US, its effects across the world have been devastating. This is a policy that directly harms some of the world’s most vulnerable people, and has little to do with protecting lives.
Trump’s reinstatement and expansion of the policy in 2017, which affects an estimated $12bn of planned funding (the previous, Bush-era policy affected $600m), has done nothing to achieve its supposed goal of decreasing abortion rates. Instead, it has put millions of women’s lives at risk, particularly in the world’s poorest countries.
For a start, women have been denied access to sexual and reproductive healthcare, leading to unintended pregnancies and unsafe abortions. But the detrimental impact of the Global Gag Rule goes beyond reproductive health, as it affects the other services these organisations also provide.
As a result, the expanded policy has impacted cervical and breast cancer screening, as well as HIV testing and treatment. It has forced clinics which offer critical nutrition, HIV, malaria and tuberculosis services to close, and prevented survivors of gender-based violence from getting help.
The Global Gag Rule has also sown chaos for marginalised groups, particularly those disproportionately affected by HIV. Sex workers, gay men and people who use drugs are just some of those who have been left in the cold.
The damaging impact of the rule was immediately apparent. Just one year into the expansion of the policy, our Early Warning Signs report found that NGOs in Cambodia helping gay men and people living with HIV had been forced to scale back services. This created barriers for people needing HIV treatment and reduced access to condoms.
Sadly, the report also found that HIV organisations in Malawi that offered family planning services in addition to cervical cancer and STI screening for sex workers had already been forced to close due to the lack of funds.
There are countless examples like these across the world: of services disrupted, barriers reinstated, and marginalised people facing harm on account of a rule that is supposedly intended to protect life.
Every Democratic administration since Bill Clinton has revoked the Global Gag Rule, and Joe Biden has already committed to doing the same, reigniting hope for all of us working in global health. Throwing the rule out will be a cause for celebration, but the impact of Trump’s expansion has been so insidious and destabilising that it may take some time just to return to where things stood in 2016.
As well as directly impacting the world’s poorest women and girls, the rule has set back by over a decade crucial efforts to develop an integrated approach to ending AIDS. For frontline HIV organisations, already grappling with falling funding and reduced awareness, Trump’s reintroduction of the Mexico City Policy was a hammer-blow at the worst possible time.
Clinics have closed, referral pathways have been interrupted, and trust between service providers and marginalised groups has been greatly damaged. It took time and hard work for these services to be established, and it will take years of hard work for them to be built up again.
A revocation of the rule by the Biden administration will go a long way to help — but there is no room for half measures. At Frontline AIDS, we and our partners see first-hand the havoc that the Global Gag Rule continues to cause. Women and girls need the autonomy and economic equality which is rightfully theirs. Those living with and affected by HIV and other serious health issues must be supported.
That’s why we are campaigning for this harmful policy to be thrown out permanently. It has been used as a political football for far too long. We cannot allow the fight for global healthcare to be derailed at the whim of future Presidents.
Main image credit: Getty