New Republic: The Growing Toll of the Global Gag Rule
“…Last Thursday, peer-reviewed medical journal The Lancet published a study confirming what reproductive health experts have long suspected: Surveying 26 countries in sub-Saharan Africa between 1995 and 2014 (a time period during which the gag rule was reinstated by Republican administrations and rescinded by Democratic ones), the countries relying heavily on U.S. aid saw much higher rates of abortion — 40 percent more — when the gag rule was in place. In other words, in addition to the steep costs imposed on other forms of health care when the gag rule is instituted, it has the exact opposite effect of what conservative policymakers say they intend…” (Schreiber, 7/3).