Ms. Magazine | Trump’s Gag Rules Hurt the Most Vulnerable Women
Excerpt of Ms. Magazine op-ed by GJC Legal Adviser Elena Sarver.
Over the last two and a half years, the Trump administration has waged war on women’s sexual and reproductive rights. The battles have played out internationally and here at home—driven by oppressive gag rules globally and domestically.
The Global and Domestic Gag Rules are just two of the repressive policies that the Trump administration has put in place to deny abortions to women. Both of these policies are intended to restrict access to necessary services and silence the conversation around abortion, ultimately causing great harm to women’s health and their lives. But while their names are similar, these policies target two different pools of federal funding.
The Global Gag Rule is outwardly oriented, and prevents foreign non-governmental organizations that receive U.S. global health funding from providing or “promoting” abortions as a method of family planning. Trump’s iteration of the decades-old Republican policy expanded its scope from family planning assistance to global health assistance—restricting $8.8 billion in U.S. funding instead of $600 million.