Unintended Consequences: Gag Rule Reduces Contraceptive Access

Washington, DC - January 23, 2006

Five years after President Bush reinstated the Global Gag Rule¹ on his first day in office, PAI calls on the Bush administration to show that this policy benefits women and their families in the developing world and actually achieves its implied objective of reducing abortions. In fact, PAI-led research by the Global Gag Rule Impact Project demonstrates that the reality of the gag rule's impact is quite the opposite. The gag rule has cut off family planning funding and worsened existing shortages of contraceptives – including condoms – at a time when they are desperately needed to prevent unintended pregnancies and HIV/AIDS infection. In Kenya alone, eight family planning clinics serving thousands of poor women have been forced to close because of the cut-off of U.S. funding.

Reducing the number of abortions worldwide is a worthy goal. The administration's approach, however, is hardly evidence-based and flies in the face of sound public health practice. Unplanned pregnancies are the primary cause of abortion and contraception is essential in preventing unplanned and unwanted pregnancies. More than half of the 80 million unintended pregnancies that occur each year end in abortion. Yet today more than 200 million women in the developing world wish to delay or end childbearing but do not have access to modern contraceptives.

PAI's collaborative research confirms that since 2001 dozens of family planning providers in the developing world have lost U.S. funding, forcing them to scale back services, lay off staff and close their clinics altogether. Shipments of U.S.-donated contraceptives have been cut off to 16 countries, including Chad, Lesotho, Sierra Leone, Swaziland and Yemen. In addition, U.S. donations of contraceptives have stopped to leading family planning agencies in another 12 countries, including Bangladesh, Ethiopia, Nepal and Uganda. As a result, contraceptive access has significantly decreased in a number of developing countries – especially in hard-to-reach rural areas primarily served by clinics refusing the terms of the gag rule.

Rather than achieving its intended goal, the gag rule is harming the health of women and their families and increasing the number of unintended pregnancies. If the Bush administration is truly committed to reducing abortion and helping improve the quality of life in the developing world, then the Global Gag Rule must be repealed.Five years after President Bush reinstated the Global Gag Rule on his first day in office, PAI calls on the Bush administration to show that this policy benefits women and their families in the developing world and actually achieves its implied objective of reducing abortions. In fact, PAI-led research by the Global Gag Rule Impact Project demonstrates that the reality of the gag rule's impact is quite the opposite. The gag rule has cut off family planning funding and worsened existing shortages of contraceptives – including condoms – at a time when they are desperately needed to prevent unintended pregnancies and HIV/AIDS infection. In Kenya alone, eight family planning clinics serving thousands of poor women have been forced to close because of the cut-off of U.S. funding.

 

Population Action International (PAI) works to improve individual well-being and preserve global resources by mobilizing political and financial support for population, family planning and reproductive health policies and programs.