Advanced Geothermal Innovation Leadership Act of 2019

Floor Speech

In the past 3 years, we have seen the global impact of this policy. Health clinics have closed, access to care has decreased, and lives are needlessly put at risk. When women in developing countries and other parts of the world don't have access to family planning and information they need for women's reproductive health, abortions actually increase rather than decrease. Research shows that by decreasing access to information about modern contraceptive options, abortion rates increase. This policy doesn't stop abortions; it only limits the resources that are available that prevent women from having unwanted pregnancies.

My Republican colleagues can call it whatever they want--the Protecting Life in Global Health Assistance policy, the Mexico City Policy--I call it dangerous and deadly. In fact, instead of protecting life, the global gag rule erects new barriers to critical health services, including reproductive health services, for people and communities who already have limited access to affordable, high quality healthcare.

Across U.S. global health assistance, we are seeing a breakdown in systems of health care provisions which disproportionately impacts the most vulnerable, hard-to-reach populations. In Uganda, mobile health teams that go into communities and provide sometimes the only health care available are being cut.

ABBEF, the International Planned Parenthood Federation member in Burkina Faso, was forced in 2017 to prematurely end its U.S.-supported pilot initiative to distribute contraceptives in secondary schools where there is a huge family planning need.

Marie Stopes International, MSI, received 17% of its donor income from USAID at the time the global gag rule was reinstated. These funds were exclusively used for voluntary contraception services and the loss of funding has impacted work with poor and marginalized communities most in need of accessing services.

Marie Stopes Ethiopia, with expertise in reaching remote communities, ended its U.S.-funded program providing vasectomies and tubal ligations to rural populations. No other organization has the technical skills and expertise to provide the same quality of service and choice.

Clearly this policy decreases care, increases abortions, and risks the lives of women around the world. And this is not about abortion, this is about controlling a woman's body and limiting her choices.

If we are actually going to get serious about improving women's health, we should be working to end the global gag rule.

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