Dateline: October 27, 2000

House and Senate members reached an agreement over international family planning funding, ultimately striking the prohibitive language known as the Global Gag Rule. The Global Gag rule, inserted in last year's budget by Rep. Chris Smith (R-NJ), was a contentious item, supported or opposed almost exclusively along party lines. It prohibited U.S. funds from going to foreign organizations that, with their own non-U.S. funds, provide abortion services beyond cases involving life endangerment of the woman, rape, or incest, or that lobby their government on issues concerning abortion, or that violate the abortion law of any foreign country.

Planned Parenthood's fact sheet, prepared in opposition to last year's Gag Rule, states:

Every minute of every day, 365 days a year, a woman dies of a pregnancy-related cause due to lack of access to reproductive health care:

Nearly 600,000 women die during pregnancy and childbirth each year;

75,000 women die attempting to abort an unintended pregnancy themselves or with the help of an untrained and unsafe provider;

these deaths render at least one million children motherless every year, and for every woman who dies, 30 more incur debilitating lifelong injuries.

Every study shows that where family planning is available, abortions plummet.

The bill, which now awaits the President's signature, not only removed the restrictive Gag Rule, but also represents the first increase in international family planning funds since 1995. Although the Conference Report includes previous language that no U.S. funds may be used in the "performance of abortions as a method of family planning or to motivate or coerce any person to practice abortions," the bill is silent regarding international organizations' use of their own funds.

In light of the past support - no, insistence - on this provision by Republican lawmakers, it is interesting to note that George W. Bush spoke very strongly during the second debate against the kind of cultural imperialism embodied by the Global Gag Rule:

I'm not so sure the role of the United States is to go around the world and say this is the way it's got to be. We can help. And maybe it's just our difference in government, the way we view government. I want to empower the people. I want to help people help themselves, not have government tell people what to do.

Perhaps those Republicans that relented on requiring the gag rule to be included in this year's foreign aid budget took their leader's words to heart. We can hope so. But, at any event, it is certain that the issue will come up again in next year's foreign spending bill. And it is also certain that the outcome will be decided by the next president, and the composition of the next Congress.

Don't forget to vote!

~Karen~