The Global Gag Rule, which feminists have been pointing out is bad news especially for the world’s poorest women, isn’t just about abortion. It’s about birth control, and family planning, which the very poorest women often need the most. For those who don’t know, it’s the law that demands that any organization that even mentions abortion lose all its U.S.-backed family planning funding which means they don’t get basic contraception.
Chair Nita Lowey (D-NY) (of the House Appropriations Subcommittee on State and Foreign Operations and Related Programs) added: “In some cases, the largest distribution centers for contraceptives have experienced decreased access for over 50% of the women they serve.”
Besides: it doesn’t make much of a difference in the amount of abortions. What legal abortions provide is women who live another day.
Whether abortion is legal or illegal, rates are about the same. But the “shocking” difference is how dangerous it is to women where it is illegal. At least 67,000 women die each year from unsafe abortions.
I suppose it’s useless to point out that half the countries we’re funding aren’t, um, Christian, and may or may not feel that abortion is immoral.
(source: Feminist Daily News, 11/1)