Is ‘Global Gag Rule’ Anti-Woman?

* Congress and the White House conducted last-minute negotiations over payment of the United States’ dues to the United Nations and funding for international family planning.

But anti-family-planning Rep. Christopher Smith (R-N.J.) held U.N. dues hostage because he wanted to impose a “global gag rule” on international family planning assistance. This will cost the lives of thousands of women by cutting funds for family planning overseas.

This so-called compromise exposes the raw cynicism and irrationality of Smith’s anti-woman agenda. While he claims that the intent of this “global gag rule” is about preventing U.S. funds from promoting abortion overseas, this deal does no such thing, because to use U.S. funds in this way has been illegal since 1973.

It will reduce U.S. funding for abortions from zero to zero. What it will do is cut access to family planning, increasing the likelihood that women will seek unsafe abortions.

Every minute of every day, 365 days a year, a woman dies of a pregnancy-related cause due to lack of access to reproductive health care.

The “global gag rule” would dictate to family planning providers in other countries what they can do and say with their own money.

It would cut off funds to family planning agencies if they even talk openly about their country’s abortion laws--restrictions that would violate our 1st Amendment right to free speech if enacted in the U.S.

This continues to promote an anti-woman, anti-family planning agenda. Smith and religious political extremist groups put the president and Congress in the position forcing them to make a deal that will cost the lives of thousands of women.

It is unfortunate that this kind of political deceit continues to influence our involvement in humanitarian causes such as family planning and women’s reproductive health.

STANLEY D. SMITH

Clergy for Choice of Orange County

Santa Ana