[Congressional Record Volume 147, Number 12 (Tuesday, January 30, 2001)]
[House]
[Pages H90-H91]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




           IN OPPOSITION TO IMPOSITION OF THE GLOBAL GAG RULE

  Mrs. MINK of Hawaii. Mr. Speaker, I rise to express my strong 
opposition to President Bush's decision to reinstate the anti-
democratic Mexico City restrictions on U.S. assistance to international 
family planning organizations. Also known as the Global Gag Rule, this 
provision prohibits nongovernmental organizations (NGOs) that receive 
U.S. family planning assistance from using their own private non-U.S. 
funds to provide counseling, referrals, or services related to abortion 
or to engage in any effort to change the laws of their country 
governing abortion.
  This harmful provision will not prevent abortions--desperate women 
will still find a way to obtain an abortion. But the restrictions will 
help to make abortions more dangerous and will inhibit access to family 
planning and reproductive health services to the world's poorest and 
most powerless women.
  International family planning programs provide vital services that 
improve women's health and mortality, improve child survival

[[Page H91]]

rates, and increase women's educational opportunities and earnings. 
Hundreds of thousands of women in the developing world--many of whom 
are young adolescents--die from complications of pregnancy or 
inadequate reproductive health care. Few of these girls and young women 
have equal rights, much less the abstinence option viewed by some in 
this body as the solution to unwanted pregnancies. The Global Gag Rule 
will cost women's lives!
  Let's remember that it has been against U.S. law to use USAID funds 
for abortion or to promote abortion since 1973. The Global Gag Rule is 
a means of denying to women in other, poorer countries services that 
are legal in the United States even when these services are paid for 
with private funds.
  The Mexico City restrictions even go so far as to prohibit NGOs from 
using their own funds to lobby their own governments to change laws 
regarding abortion. The restrictions force foreign NGOs to choose 
between desperately needed family planning funding and their right to 
speak out on an important social issue.
  Under the Global Gag Rule, an NGO that dared to protest a lack of 
post-abortion care and the jailing of women and girls who have had 
abortion would lose U.S. family planning funds. If this NGO were the 
only family planning provider in a remote rural area--there are seldom 
multiple providers--then access to these services would be eliminated.
  I find it incredible that the United States would use its enormous 
influence and power to curb free speech in the developing world. This 
is contrary to everything our country stands for. If the Congress 
attempted to pass such a provision affecting nonprofit agencies in the 
United States, it would be struck down as un-Constitutional.
  In her Washington Post column of September 29, 2000, Judy Mann quotes 
Katherine Bourne, director of public affairs for Pathfinder, and 
international reproductive health organization, about the dangers of 
the Global Gag Rule.

       [The gag rule] allows these organizations to provide care 
     when a woman is dying from a botched abortion, but ``they are 
     not parsing out the legislative language,'' Bourne says. 
     ``What they are hearing is: `The U.S. doesn't like abortions. 
     It endangers our funding. We'll stay away from it entirely.' 
     '' . . . ``In Peru, we work with eight different NGOs,'' she 
     says. ``They tend to be [in remote areas] where there are no 
     services. They are so nervous about it, they won't stock 
     equipment to do post-abortion lifesaving care. They refer 
     women to the public-sector hospital. That can make the 
     difference between a woman going to a local clinic that is a 
     half-hour away or going to a public hospital that is an 
     eight-hour walk away. If you are hemorrhaging from an 
     abortion, you could die within hours.''

  All Americans want to see the number of abortions decline. The best 
and most proven method of reducing abortions is to provide family 
planning services. The Global Gag Rule will not reduce abortions, but 
it will reduce access to family planning and lifesaving reproductive 
health services to the detriment of the world's poorest women and 
children.

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