Federal rule also known as âMexico City policyâ halts US funds to overseas groups that provide abortion services
Carter Sherman at The Guardian:
Donald Trump on Friday signed an executive order reinstating a federal rule known as the âMexico City policyâ which halts US aid from flowing to groups that provide abortion services, counsel people about the procedure or advocate for abortion rights overseas. The policy, which was first instituted by Ronald Reagan in 1984, is typically implemented whenever a Republican president wins the White House and rescinded whenever a Democrat wins. But this whiplash has major implications for abortion and reproductive healthcare around the world. Historically, the revival of the Mexico City policy affects up to about $600m of international aid. During his first term, however, Trump dramatically expanded the scope of the Mexico city policy, which abortion rights supporters call a âglobal gag ruleâ. Rather than applying the policy only to family planning assistance, as was typical, the Trump administration applied to it to assistance for organizations that offer a range of health services around the globe â leading the policy to affect billions of dollarsâ worth of aid. According to the Guttmacher Institute, which tracks abortion restrictions and their impact, the policy can cut off access to contraception, lead women to seek out unsafe abortions and cause tumult within the non-governmental groups that depend on US aid to keep their programs going. âReinstating the Mexico City policy will have deadly consequences for people across the globe,â Rebecca Hart Holder, president of Reproductive Equity Now, said in a statement. âThe United States is a vital partner to healthcare providers and organizations around the world, and robbing those frontline providers of their ability to provide the full spectrum of reproductive healthcare, and even information about peopleâs options, will result in people losing their lives to pregnancy complications.â Trump also signed a second executive order affirming a longstanding US policy that prohibits the use of federal funds to pay for abortions. That order also rolled back two executive orders penned by Joe Biden, which sought to protect abortion access in the wake of the 2022 overturning of Roe v Wade. The fall of Roe led a wave of states to ban the procedure. [...] Abortion rights supporters had anticipated the return of the Mexico City policy, but are still awaiting news on whether Trump will allow widespread enforcement of the Comstock Act, a 19th-century anti-vice law that could be used to effectively ban abortion nationwide.
Trump doing typical Republican President things by reinstating the Global Gag Rule (aka the Mexico City Policy) and reaffirm the anti-abortion Hyde Amendment.















