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Women's Rights
What's New? - Archive
WomenMatter will continuously post updates on all this and other issues as we monitor the continuing philosophical and practical debates nationwide.
Please check back often for updates. Past updates are available for reference on the Women's Rights Archives page.
Since Women's Rights is in many ways an umbrella issue, WomenMatter will highlight related updates from other Life Issue areas here:
Our Money, Our Way: The Terms and Conditions of our Aid
Should foreign aid be unconditional? Or, should developing nations that receive aid be accountable to the U.S.? Do we have the right to require nations to develop in a certain way?
Some think that if we give money, we have the right to oversee that money. Others believe that imposing our values and standards upon a foreign nation is much like colonizing them, and that a nation has the right to shape its own growth because its development must coincide with the cultural understanding of its people.
These various arguments surfaced when, in the dawn of his presidency, George W. Bush reinstated what his opponents call the “global gag rule" (and proponents call “the so-called global gag rule"). Before being resurrected by Bush, the “global gag rule" was created and instituted by President Reagan and then revoked by President Clinton.
What is the “global gag rule"?
The “global gag rule" prohibits foreign family planning organizations to which we give financial aid from performing abortions, providing abortion counseling, giving referrals to abortion clinics, or lobbying to keep abortion legal. If such organizations refer to abortion in any of these ways, they are denied US aid.
For this reason, many see the “global gag rule" as a free speech issue. From this point of view, we are not only preventing women abroad from having abortions, but from learning about abortion as an option and reproductive rights as a concept.
People who feel that abortion is morally wrong do not want our government to support abortion in any way. They believe that when a clinic proposes abortion as an option, it is validating and even encouraging abortion.
Those who support reproductive rights cite that withholding financial aid for one reason drains essential funds from all types of family planning, resulting in more unwanted pregnancies, and thus, more abortions. They say that keeping women educated about reproductive choices is the only way to reduce the number of abortions.
For more on the debate over abortion [click here]
Action in the Senate
On July 9, 2003, the Senate passed an amendment to overturn the “global gag rule." How does the system work? On a vote of 53 - 43 senators, led by Barbara Boxer of California, stopped an attempt to deny the amendment. The amendment then passed on a voice vote where individual senators do not record their votes. In this way the Senate as a whole goes on record that the rule harms women in developing countries. Supporters of the amendment claim that the world’s poorest women (who already have difficulty accessing family planning services) are suffering because the gag rule has shut down clinics.
Next, the amendment will move to the House, where it is likely to face stronger opposition.
Those who want to maintain “global gag rule" say that in many developing nations, abortion is illegal, so the gag rule is simply encouraging compliance with the law.
If they have our dollars, why not our ideas?
Some voters agree with the “global gag rule" because they don’t want their tax dollars supporting abortions overseas. However, US funds have not been used to support foreign abortions since 1973. The Helms amendment (named after Jesse Helms) prohibits this. The gag rule goes a step further. It erases the concept of abortion in foreign family planning.
The Bush Administration and its supporters are concerned with the way that foreign nations conceptualize family and sex. Bush has promised aid to Africa to fight its AIDS epidemic, with the understanding that its education programs teach abstinence. Like the “global gag rule," this policy presents particular beliefs about behavior as universal, applying to all individuals in all cultures.
What information should all women have? If less wealthy nations need help, what requirements for the use of our taxpayer dollars should the U.S. government set? Should they apply to all women and men everywhere?
To discuss this topic with other Womenmatter readers, [click here]
Article Posted on: 7/17/2003
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