The Senate should be applauded for voting to repeal the global gag rule yesterday. The global gag rule, also known as the Mexico City Policy, prohibits any foreign non-governmental organization (NGO) that receives USAID funds from performing or providing referrals for abortions, or advocating for laws that increase access to abortion. Indeed, any foreign NGO that is a recipient of USAID money may not even use its own money to support abortion, whether through advocacy, counseling, referrals, or direct services.
The global gag rule has had harmful and widespread effects on women throughout the world. It prevents local NGOs from responding to the potentially devastating effects of unsafe and illegal abortions, leaving organizations unable to provide information to women about how to obtain a safe and legal abortion, or to provide abortions directly to women who may not otherwise be able to afford a safe abortion.
The gag rule even goes as far as prohibiting USAID recipients from advocating against attempts to make abortions laws more restrictive. This is not only bad for women's health, it is also bad for democracy. Curtailing free speech by limiting what organizations can and cannot advocate for, and restricting the information an organization can disseminate, runs counter to the long-held American ideal of the free marketplace of ideas. Moreover, by promoting a skewed and biased picture of the family planning options available to women, the gag rule undermines the important public health goal of informing women of all their options so that they can make the safest and most appropriate decisions for themselves and their families.
Given the president's stated commitment to cultivating democracy abroad, he should take this opportunity to do just that and repeal the global gag rule. Democracy is ill-served by governments trying to censor private debate on issues as important as women's reproductive health and rights. By enforcing the global gag rule, the Bush administration has sent a signal worldwide that the democratic value of freedom of speech will only be supported by the United States if people's speech is in line with the ideology of the White House. We cannot expect other countries to respect freedom of speech and other political freedoms if we export a policy that undermines those basic rights. In this time of U.S. military interventionism around the world and the steep decline of respect for the United States internationally, we can ill afford the hypocrisy of the global gag rule.