Hello, world, and welcome to day three of the Trump administration. Just two days after women and allies around the world came together to stand up for intersectional feminism and reproductive rights, a group of cisgender, heterosexual men have decided to reinstate the Mexico City Policy, otherwise known as the “Global Gag Rule.”
The Mexico City Policy prevents the federal government from funding international health organizations that discuss abortion when telling patients about their family planning options. The policy was created by Ronald Reagan, the first Republican daddy to be summoned from the gates of Hollywood’s deepest hell. Former president Obama revoked the policy in 2009, but it looks like, once again, Republicans are prioritizing fetuses over the bodies holding them.
For feminists, the reinstatement of the Global Gag Rule comes as a crushing blow. The necessity of the policy has been criticized for many reasons, not least of which is that no federal funding goes to international abortions now. Thanks to the Helms Amendment in 1973, the money donated by the U.S. government to overseas clinics hasn’t gone directly to abortions in decades anyways.
The Global Gag Rule is a step even farther back, though; it prevents international health clinics from so much as talking about abortions to people seeking family planning solutions.
The success rate of the Mexico City Policy has also been criticized by political experts and feminists. In fact, after George W. Bush’s reinstatement of the policy, abortions in some parts of Africa went up because women had less access to contraceptives. Not to mention the fact that taking away someone’s ability to have an abortion in a safe environment does not mean they still won’t try to get an abortion.
The Global Gag Rule won’t just make abortions more common, it’ll make them more dangerous. Marie Stopes International, a worldwide family planning organization, estimates that the reinstatement of this policy will lead to around 21,700 deaths just in Trump’s first term.
Trump is in office now, and the decisions he’s made just in the past three days have already ended future lives. When faced with the voices of women around the world begging him to listen, he turned his back and proved once again that the only life that really matters to him is his own.
