WASHINGTON – On his first day in office, President George W. Bush issued the global gag rule, saying, “American taxpayers don’t want their money going to pay for abortions in developing countries.”

I believe what he really meant was “Americans are willing to risk the lives of millions of women and children in order to ensure that they can never have access to a safe abortion, or counseling to avoid an unsafe one.”

A new report released this week shows the grave health disaster this policy is wreaking on women worldwide: the global gag rule undermines international efforts to prevent unwanted pregnancies and HIV/AIDS and to reduce incidence of unsafe abortions – goals Americans have stood by and President Bush has supported on-record. The global gag rule states that U.S. assistance for family planning programs may not go to any non-governmental organization abroad that provides abortions, counsels patients about the availability of abortion or participates in a public discussion about legalizing abortion – even if they undertake these activities with their own money.

The Bush Administration and other supporters of this policy unreasonably expect that those who really care about providing health care could do it without talking about unsafe abortion – even as unsafe abortion causes 13 percent of all pregnancy-related deaths and is a leading cause of death for women of reproductive age in many countries.

As the global gag rule was being implemented and the impact was being felt, we began a conversation with sister organizations in developing countries.

Planned Parenthood associations have been particularly targeted by this policy because of our commitment to the needs of our clients and our understanding that public policy and health care delivery are inextricably linked.

We joined with colleagues at Population Action International and Ipas to document what effect the gag rule was having on health care, using four countries – Kenya, Ethiopia, Zambia and Romania – as case studies.

The report, Access Denied, was released in early October. In addition to significantly reducing access to vital family planning, we learned that the Bush policy weakens HIV/AIDS prevention efforts and perpetuates women’s reliance on unsafe abortion providers – two of President Bush’s stated foreign assistance goals.

Our discoveries were devastating:

-In Kenya, loss of funding as a result of the gag rule forced the Family Planning Association of Kenya – the oldest Planned Parenthood in Africa – to close three clinics.

These clinics served 19,000 clients in 2000, providing not only birth control information and services, but also pre- and post-natal care and well-baby care for mothers and infants.

-In Romania, women routinely turn to abortion because they don’t have access to birth control, and the health system compensates physicians more for abortions than for contraception.

The gag rule has reinforced the longstanding separation between abortion and family planning services, rendering U.S.-supported organizations unable to take the steps required to help lower the abortion rate and improve women’s health overall.

The irony, of course, is that nearly 70 percent of American voters believe that the United States should be supporting these very programs – on a par with support for the war against terrorism. Most Americans also oppose the global gag rule.

Gloria Feldt is the President of Planned Parenthood Federation of America www.plannedparenthood.org.

Readers may write her at PPFA, 1780 Massachusetts Ave. NW, Washington, DC, 20036.

This essay is available to Knight Ridder/Tribune News Service subscribers. Knight Ridder/Tribune did not subsidize the writing of this column; the opinions are those of the writer and do not necessarily represent the views of Knight Ridder/Tribune or its editors.

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(c) 2003, Planned Parenthood Federation of America

Distributed by Knight Ridder/Tribune Information Services

AP-NY-10-10-03 0605EDT

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