Efforts to Repeal the Global Gag Rule Succeeding ... For Now

By Meaghan Lamarre, Internet Communications Coordinator

September 18, 2007

Champions of women's rights have been fighting since Bush's first day in office to repeal his Global Gag Rule, a policy that prohibits U.S. family planning funds from going to international family planning organizations that lobby or speak out for abortion rights, or that use their own local funding to provide abortion services, and even those groups that merely give patients information about abortion as one option are denied funding (U.S. funds already could not be used to pay for abortion services).

In many countries, denial of this U.S. family planning aid is literally and life-and-death matter, and the deprivation of these funds has devastating consequences for women around the world. Under the guise of anti-abortion policies, the Gag Rule deprives countless women of the contraceptives that could prevent unwanted pregnancies, and therefore abortions. The Gag Rule also makes it harder for family planning advocates, who are those closest to the problems of unplanned pregnancy, to work toward more access to abortion.

This month we achieved the first major victory in six years when the Senate passed a measure that would repeal the Global Gag Rule! Sens. Barbara Boxer (D-Calif.) and Olympia Snowe (R-Maine) offered an amendment to the State and Foreign Operations Appropriations to remove the restrictions of the Global Gag Rule and on Sept. 6, the amendment passed by a vote of 53 to 41 (see how your senators voted!).

The Senate passed the appropriations bill, including the Boxer/Snowe amendment, so it now moves on to a conference committee where the differences between the Senate version and House version (which does not have a Gag Rule amendment) will be reconciled. Once the conference committee has reached agreement, the bill will then be sent to the White House for the president's signature. Bush has threatened to veto any appropriations bill with provisions for repealing the Global Gag Rule, so we'll likely face a showdown.

Because it's never smart to have all your eggs in one basket, there's a separate piece of legislation in Congress with the same goal of repealing the Global Gag Rule: it's called the Global Democracy Promotion Act. If Bush vetoes the appropriations bill, then the Global Democracy Promotion Act becomes that much more important in the fight to repeal these foreign aid restrictions. Ask your members of Congress to support this legislation today!