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Friday, June 8th, 2018

Study: The White House’s international aid cuts could cause millions more abortions by 2020

Author:     Annalisa Merelli
Source:     Quartz
Publication Date:     7 June 2018
 Link: Study: The White House’s international aid cuts could cause millions more abortions by 2020
Stephan:   Study after study has shown that restricting abortion does not reduce abortion it only makes it more dangerous and more likely to kill the woman who has the abortion. But christofascists don't live in a world where actual facts have any weight. They operate from the stupidity of fantasy and blind religious obsession. The Founders went to great lengths to separate church and state precisely because they knew from their own personal experience that nations run by religion always fail, and multitudes suffer as a result of that failure. American has forgotten  that lesson, so we are paying the price. Unfortunately, as this article describes, our failure is going to harm millions.

Family planning services are being cut around the world because of the global gag rule.
Credit: AP/Stephen Wandera

Like George Bush and George W. Bush before him, Donald Trump wasted no time reinstating the 1984 Mexico City Policy, or Global Gag Rule (GGR). Under the pleased eyes of a group of male advisors, he signed the proclamation on his second day as US president, cutting funding to international organizations that offer abortion services, referrals to abortion providers, or information about abortions. Ironically, one of the most striking consequences of the rule is a rise in number of abortions—and overwhelmingly illegal ones.

On June 5, the Center for Gender and Health Equity (CHANGE) published an evaluation of the policy’s impact, comparing it to prior iterations of the same rule. Its analysis shows that Trump’s version of the rule is the furthest-reaching in history; in addition to cutting funds for reproductive health organizations, the new rule also cuts funding to other types of health organizations.

A large number of international organizations rely primarily or exclusively on USAID […]

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