LONDON (Reuters) - A decades-old U.S. government policy reinstated by President Donald Trump in 2017 that restricts international aid to NGOs that support abortion is linked to a 40% rise in abortions in some parts of sub-Saharan African, a study showed on Thursday.
The “Mexico City Policy”, also known as the “global gag rule”, also led to more pregnancies and lower contraceptive use among women in African countries reliant on U.S. foreign aid, the study in the Lancet Global Health journal showed.
The policy prevents U.S. federal funding from being used overseas to support any organization that performs or provides counseling on abortion. Successive U.S. administrations have flip-flopped between rescinding and reinstating it along partisan lines since it was created by the Republican administration of Ronald Reagan in 1984.
“Our findings suggest how a U.S. policy that aims to restrict federal funding for abortion services can lead, unintentionally, to more – and probably riskier – abortions in poor countries,” said Nina Brooks, a researcher at Stanford University who co-led the work.
https://www.reuters.com/article/us-health-abortions-gag/u-s-gag-rule-linked-to-40-jump-in-abortions-in-parts-of-africa-idUSKCN1TS3AY