Personally, I am anti-abortion, I think that life is too precious to 'waste'.  However, I am aware that abortion is, in some cases, an option that has to be taken.  I'm especially aware that legal and hygienic abortions have to be offered because otherwise women's lives are put in danger.  I am also convinced that the best way to cut rates of any kind of abortion is to promote good education for women, to promote good education to men and to make contraceptives available.  I am also convinced that not handing out free condoms in poor, AIDS ravished countries is akin to murder.  This is why the so-called 'Global Gag Rule' makes me so very angry that I can hardly speak about it.  Millions of people all over the world are suffering death, illness and poverty due to the religious convictions of one man.

 What is the Global Gag Rule?

The Global Gag Rule denies foreign organizations receiving U.S. family planning assistance the right to use their own non-U.S. funds to provide legal abortion, counsel or refer for abortion, or lobby for the legalization of abortion in their country. The gag rule originally was announced by the Reagan administration at the 1984 United Nations International Conference on Population in Mexico City. It was rescinded in 1993 by then President Clinton, then reinstated in 2001 by President George W. Bush on his first business day in office.

For those foreign organizations that refuse to comply with the gag rule, the price is not just monetary. In addition to forfeiting financial assistance from the United States Agency for International Development (USAID), these organizations lose valuable technical assistance and U.S.-donated contraceptives, including condoms – two critical aspects of the USAID family planning program. No other bilateral donor has the capacity and expertise to easily fill the void left by the withdrawal of U.S. assistance. read more