Taken together, the actions show a government that is receptive, at least, to initial requests from advocates eager to codify a new era of abortion protection after the previous government took the restrictions on the procedure to unprecedented levels.
The Biden government’s announcement coincides with the eve of the anti-abortion activists who hold the annual March for Life event on Friday – although this year is virtual. Former President Donald Trump made history in 2020 by being the first incumbent president to attend the event, which for decades drew a large crowd of supporters each year to the National Mall.
The changes occur as health care providers, reproductive rights groups and progressive legislators seek a more permanent end to long-standing barriers to the procedure.
Access to Abortion Abroad
Beyond the borders of the United States, the impact of Trump’s expanded policy in Mexico City, formally called “Protecting Life in Global Health Care”, was “really devastating,” said Melvine Ouyo, a reproductive health nurse in Nairobi and former clinical director of Family Health Options Kenya. “So many lives have been lost.”
The policy, also known as the “global gag rule”, has been instituted by Republican governments since President Ronald Reagan and repealed by Democrats. A State Department review published last year on the Trump administration’s policy to ban funding for foreign nonprofits that perform or promote abortion found that it also affected efforts to treat tuberculosis and HIV / AIDS, as well as to provide nutritional assistance, among other programs. had a significant impact on sub-Saharan Africa.
Advocates and practitioners like Ouyo say the deaths stem from cuts in health care of all kinds for women, including access to contraception, which leads them to seek illegal, often unsafe and deadly abortions.
“This global gag rule has been one of the most damaging policies for women, especially women from marginalized communities,” Ouyu told CNN. “Biden really has a lot to do.”
Seema Jalan, executive director of the United Nations Foundation’s Universal Access Project and Policy, said that advocates see an opportunity for the Biden government to work with Congress to make broad changes. She cited the Helms Amendment – which prohibits US foreign aid for performing or promoting abortion, not only for foreign nonprofits, but for US governments, multilateral organizations, and nonprofits – and the Hyde amendment, which imposes similar restrictions on groups within NOS. Policies currently allow abortion in cases of rape, incest or threat to the life of a pregnant person.
“There is the government’s hard work working with Congress to put in place permanent solutions to harmful policies: addressing the global gag, Helms, Hyde and other technical solutions that are highly consequential,” said Jalan.
Access to abortion in the internal market
Biden’s memorandum, while a significant change in direction, represents only the beginning of defenders’ goals to restore the program.
“We expect some commitment to repair the program, terminate the rule and get long-time providers back on the network so that services can be restored in parts of the country that have been without Title X funding for so long,” said Audrey Sandusky , director of communications for the National Association of Family Planning and Reproductive Health (NFPRHA).
About 1.5 million people lost access to Title X coverage after the rule was implemented, according to Sandusky. The group has nearly three quarters of Title X grantees among its members of providers and administrators and has worked with the Biden transition team and the HHS team in the future of Title X, she said.
In light of how some “patients were left in the dark” after they were no longer able to obtain free or low-cost health care from their usual providers, “I would say it would take providers a long time to regain the trust and security that patients had in them “said Sandusky, as well as” to regain confidence in the federal government and to provide providers with the support they need from this government and from Congress “.
In a call with reporters on Wednesday, Planned Parenthood President and CEO Alexis McGill Johnson considered the reversal of Mexico City Policy and the Title X abortion reference restriction “a great start, which will increase access and it will significantly impact people’s lives, but I will emphasize again, this is a start. “
When asked about the talks between Planned Parenthood and the Biden administration about Title X, McGill Johnson described “very robust conversations, and I would say, exciting not only about the domestic gag rule, but also about how more investments can go into the access to family planning and contraception, how to be more inclusive, how we can use policies to involve men as well, to involve other populations. “
“We need to improve and modernize Title X,” said McGill Johnson, adding later, “making sure it significantly reflects the sexual and reproductive health needs of all patients.”
In addition to Biden’s actions
Democratic Congresswoman Rosa DeLauro of Connecticut, chairman of the House Appropriations Committee that oversees Title X funding, told CNN in an interview on Wednesday that, although she did not contact the Biden administration in Title X, it is focused on returning the program to its previous form.
“What I am committed to the appropriations, because we have jurisdiction over Title X funding, is to work with the administration and the providers, those who have been forced out of the program, to make sure the funding is available for them to get back” , she said. “Or work in that legislative direction and ensure that there are safeguards to ensure that we cannot have what the Trump administration tried to do here.”
When asked if she would try to increase funding in this legislative session, DeLauro replied: “I’m going to take a look at what we have in terms of allocation and so on and, if I can, I will work to increase funding.”
Democratic Senator Jeanne Shaheen of New Hampshire is due to reintroduce the HER Global Law on Thursday, which would permanently revoke Mexico City’s policy. And in the House, Democratic Representative Jan Schakowsky of Illinois and others are going to reintroduce a bill to repeal the Helms amendment. Also in your sights: the Hyde Amendment.
Access to reproductive health care and abortion, if necessary, “is critical to women’s independence, success and bodily autonomy,” Schakowsky told CNN. “If you can’t control reproduction yourself, you can never really plan your life.”
More than 90 advocacy groups, including NFPRHA and Planned Parenthood, have submitted to the Biden administration a “Sexual and Reproductive Health, Rights and Justice Project” requesting such actions and others, such as terminating the Hyde Amendment.
Marcela Howell, president of In Our Own Voice: National Black Women’s Justice Reproductive Agenda, which is one of the groups, told reporters on Wednesday that lawmakers who freely discuss access to abortion have contributed to their goals.
“The reality is that we have all struggled with the stigma surrounding abortion, and if we can’t get the government and members of Congress to actually use the word abortion care, it adds to the stigma,” she said. “And we believe that it is a safe and legal procedure that women have accessed at various times in their lives and the stigma around it needs to be eliminated.”