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BOXER AMENDMENT—OVERTURNING THE GLOBAL GAG RULE

Take action by   Thursday, April 7, 2005

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Call or email your Senator to support the Boxer amendment!

  • Senator Boxer offered this exact amendment almost two years ago, and it passed with bipartisan support.

  • Under the Global Gag Rule, if an international organization receives family planning funds from USAID, it cannot use its own funds to provide, advocate for, or even talk about abortion to the women they serve.

  • This policy is not about spending U.S. money to pay for abortions abroad. That’s been illegal under the Helms Act since 1973. It’s also not talking about using U.S. money to fund lobbying. That’s also illegal. And this amendment doesn’t change any of these laws.

  • The Global Gag Rule tells family planning clinics that serve poor women all over the world what they can do and say with their own funds. These are restrictions that would be unconstitutional and unacceptable in the U.S.

  • These restrictions are at odds with our belief in free speech, democracy, and fundamental fairness. Moreover, they undermine a goal we all agree on: reducing abortions and improving the lives of women and families all over the world.

  • All over the world, USAID family planning assistance is helping to prevent abortions. It’s saving the lives of the more than a half million women who die every year in childbirth. It is helping to stop the spread of HIV. It is decreasing infant mortality and helping to bring healthy children into the world.

  • We know family planning works. But we also know, because of the Global Gag Rule, many foreign NGOs are being forced to turn our money away, and therefore dramatically cut back the care and counseling they provide to countless poor women. We are asking many to make an impossible choice between taking our money and breaking the promises they make to the women they serve.

  • The Boxer Amendment would simply say that foreign NGOs cannot be denied funding solely because of the medical care they provide with their own funds, including counseling and referrals. It also says that these organizations cannot be forced to give up U.S. funding in order to engage in free speech using their own money. If, using their own funds, they are taking actions that are legal in their own countries and would be legal in our country, they shouldn’t lose U.S. funding because of it. 

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