Hi Friend,
We knew it was coming, but that doesn’t make it less infuriating or less devastating. Last night, the twice impeached convicted felon who somehow got re-elected president reinstated the odious Global Gag Rule.
You know how crucial US investment in family planning and reproductive health programs is to millions of people around the world. You know that access to these services is essential to improving global health, protecting the environment, easing poverty, and expanding educational and economic opportunities for everyone—especially women and girls.
The Global Gag Rule devastates access to contraceptives and reproductive health care for the most vulnerable people in the poorest parts of the world. Its proponents claim it’s about ending abortion, or in their words “protecting life." But even if you take them at their word—which you shouldn’t—it’s an abject failure. Research has shown again and again that the Global Gag Rule causes dramatic increases in abortions, many of which are unsafe.
We know how this ends, and so does this administration. It ends with closed clinics, contraceptive shortages, and more unintended pregnancies, unsafe abortions, and maternal deaths. The Global Gag Rule is both cruel and stupid.
That is why we need you to ask your elected officials to sign on as original co-sponsors of the Global HER (Health, Empowerment, and Rights) Act. The Global HER Act would permanently repeal the Global Gag Rule, preventing any future president from unilaterally imposing the policy again. It would ensure that organizations around the world receive the global health funding that they need and deserve.
Donald Trump and his accomplices have spent the last eight years eroding reproductive rights around the world. Let’s do all that we can to prevent them from doing four more years of damage.
Sincerely,
