{"id":678,"date":"2012-11-06T08:06:12","date_gmt":"2012-11-06T02:36:12","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/asap-asia.org\/blog\/?p=678"},"modified":"2013-03-13T11:17:37","modified_gmt":"2013-03-13T05:47:37","slug":"will-the-1980s-call-out-to-women-worldwide","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/asap-asia.org\/blog\/will-the-1980s-call-out-to-women-worldwide\/","title":{"rendered":"Will the 1980s Call Out to Women Worldwide ?"},"content":{"rendered":"

With the American Elections just a few hours away, it is time to take a look at how the leadership that gets elected will affect the rest of the world. Earlier this year, we wrote an article about the Gag Rule,<\/a> a foreign policy passed in the 1980s that bans funds from reaching non-profits that work for abortion care, anywhere in the world. In countries like Nepal, this affected maternal health severely. In other countries, like Kenya, funds were even cut off from agricultural projects because the organization that supported these also supported abortion. Every Republican President has signed the gag rule, whereas every democrat has repealed it.<\/em><\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>Below is an article from the very political, and very thought-provoking blog, RH Reality Check. \u00a0Chlo\u00eb Cooney, of the Planned Parenthood Federation of America and Planned Parenthood Action Fund, writes how the 1980s might be coming back for women worldwide, if this gag rule is reinstated.\u00a0<\/em><\/p>\n

You can read the article on Reality Check using this link:\u00a0http:\/\/www.rhrealitycheck.org\/article\/2012\/10\/25\/1980s-are-calling%E2%80%A6<\/a><\/p>\n

Global health did not come up in Monday night\u2019s final presidential debate<\/a>, which focused on U.S. foreign policy. Both candidates, however, made reference to women\u2019s issues, primarily voicing support for women\u2019s empowerment in the Middle East.<\/p>\n

President Obama\u2019s remarks reflected what has become a pillar of his administration\u2019s views on foreign policy and international assistance\u2014a strong and integrated focus on women and girls. As the president explained, \u201cbecause these countries can’t develop unless all the population, not just half of it, is developing.\u201d And then later, \u201cThese countries can’t develop if young women are not given the kind of education that they need.\u201d<\/p>\n

Such statements represent the success of Secretary of State Clinton\u2019s work to normalize the inclusion of women, girls, and gender equality as a cross-cutting principle<\/a> central to the State Department\u2019s goals.<\/p>\n

Even Governor Romney cited \u201cgender equality\u201d as a key element of how the U.S. could \u201chelp the Muslim world.\u201d<\/p>\n

Perhaps his most quotable quip of the evening, the president took aim at Governor Romney for what he described as a dangerously outdated view of the greatest threats to our nation:<\/p>\n

\u201cIn the 1980s, they’re now calling to ask for their foreign policy back because, you know, the Cold War’s been over for 20 years.\u201d<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

For supporters of women\u2019s health, this zinger hit home, harkening to another 1980s policy, the global gag rule<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Governor Romney has regularly stated on the campaign trail that he would \u201creverse the president’s decision on using U.S. funds to pay for abortion outside this country\u201d by reinstating the Mexico City Policy, also known as the global gag rule. This is a misleading claim to say the least, considering that U.S. policy already prohibits foreign assistance to fund abortion overseas under the Helms amendment<\/a> to the Foreign Assistance Act. The global gag rule is a more extreme restriction that denies U.S. foreign aid to any organization that provides or refers for abortion services or advocates to expand access to safe and legal abortion, even with their own funds.<\/p>\n

The effects<\/a> of this policy are onerous. The global gag rule cuts women off from some of the most experienced and reliable health care providers (those that provide comprehensive services, including safe and legal abortion), ultimately limiting women\u2019s access to preventive care, including birth control and cancer screenings. It undercuts the doctor-patient relationship, forcing doctors to withhold information about legal services to women who wish to know all of their options about a pregnancy. And it undercuts our international diplomacy and the promotion of democracy by limiting freedom of speech as a condition of receiving foreign aid. Americans do not like the idea of politicians in Washington making health care decisions for them. And they do not like politicians in Washington making health care decisions for women in other countries either. These are among the reasons President Obama, during his first week in office, lifted the global gag rule that had most recently been in place since President Bush\u2019s first week in office.<\/p>\n

The stark difference in the candidates\u2019 views on issues of global reproductive health and rights does not end at the global gag rule, but rather spans a number of major areas of human rights and international development.<\/p>\n

The Democratic platform states the value of U.S. support for international family planning, while the Republican platform focuses on the international fight against HIV\/AIDS as the extent of its global health discussion.<\/p>\n

Despite no mention of international family planning, the Republican platform does reiterate support for the global gag rule and opposition to the United Nations Population Fund (UNFPA). Congressman and Republican vice presidential candidate Paul Ryan also has a consistent voting record against international family planning and UNFPA, and in favor of the global gag rule.<\/p>\n

Women\u2019s health has not always been a partisan issue. Indeed, global health has enjoyed bipartisan support in recent years, with broad recognition that such programs are not only compassionate, lifesaving, and extremely successful but also very strategic and a low-cost investment with large payoffs for national security goals. Given the recognition that these health investments have across all parts of Congress, it is too bad that women are left out of the equation.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

With the American Elections just a few hours away, it is time to take a look at how the leadership that gets elected will affect the rest of the world. Earlier this year, we wrote an article about the Gag Rule, a foreign policy passed in the 1980s that bans funds from reaching non-profits that…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":14,"featured_media":4097,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[276],"tags":[187,171,15],"class_list":["post-678","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-access-and-barriers","tag-foreign-policy","tag-gag-rule","tag-safe-abortion"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/asap-asia.org\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/06\/blog-featured-image-logo.png","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p3O7nG-aW","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_likes_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/asap-asia.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/678","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/asap-asia.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/asap-asia.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/asap-asia.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/14"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/asap-asia.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=678"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/asap-asia.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/678\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":680,"href":"https:\/\/asap-asia.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/678\/revisions\/680"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/asap-asia.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/4097"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/asap-asia.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=678"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/asap-asia.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=678"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/asap-asia.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=678"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}