(ThinkProgress) — On May 14th, President Donald Trump issued a statement in honor of National Women’s Health Week, pledging to “recognize the importance of providing women access to the best, evidence-based health information and care.”
Then, on May 15th, he announced a vast expansion of the Mexico City Policy, also known as the Global Gag Rule, which restricts women’s access to comprehensive health care around the globe and has previously been found to increase rates of unwanted pregnancy and unsafe abortion.
The Global Gag Rule is a Reagan-era policy that prohibits any U.S. funding for international family planning assistance from going to organizations that provides abortions, or even mention abortion as an option to their patients. It’s illegal for any U.S. aid money to go toward abortion care itself; what the global gag rule does is prevent these organizations from using even separate funding on abortion care or referrals, even if abortion is legal in their country.
