Biden Could Reverse Trump’s Anti-Abortion Rules For Global Aid : NPR

Nana (left) gets her birth control implant checked by Dr. Jean Rangomana during the Marie Stopes International mobile clinic in Besakoa, Madagascar, on April 9, 2018. Abortion is illegal under all circumstances in Madagascar, and Trump administration policies led to shortages of birth control there, health workers say.

Carolyn Van Houten/The Washington Post via Getty Images

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Carolyn Van Houten/The Washington Post via Getty Images

Nana (left) gets her birth control implant checked by Dr. Jean Rangomana during the Marie Stopes International mobile clinic in Besakoa, Madagascar, on April 9, 2018. Abortion is illegal under all circumstances in Madagascar, and Trump administration policies led to shortages of birth control there, health workers say.

Carolyn Van Houten/The Washington Post via Getty Images

In Ethiopia, health clinics for teenagers once supported by U.S. foreign aid closed down. In Kenya, a decades-long effort to integrate HIV testing and family planning unraveled. And in Nepal, intrepid government workers who once traversed the Himalayas to spread information about reproductive health were halted.

Around the world, countries that depend on U.S. foreign aid have scrapped or scaled back ambitious public health projects, refashioning their health systems over the past four years to comport with President Donald Trump’s sweeping anti-abortion restrictions that went further than any Republican president before him.

The effects have been profound: As groups scrambled to meet the administration’s strict ideologically driven rules, they severed ties with health care providers that discuss abortion in any way, deleted references to abortion on websites and in sexual education curricula, and stopped discussing modern contraception for fear of forfeiting vital American aid.

President-elect Joe Biden has pledged to reverse the policy when he takes office, and he campaigned on a promise to enshrine abortion rights in federal law. But for many foreign aid groups, the changes may be permanent.

“The U.S. has lost its position as a leader and lost its credibility,” says Terry McGovern, of Columbia University’s Mailman School of Public Health who has overseen research of the Trump policy in multiple countries.

Since Ronald Reagan, Republican presidents have barred foreign aid organizations from using U.S. global health funds to counsel women about abortion or refer them to a safe abortion provider. But the Trump administration vastly expanded those anti-abortion restrictions, known as “the global gag rule” by opponents.

Under Trump, the rule applies to some $9 billion of aid touching nearly every facet of global health funding, including groups working on HIV, malaria, tuberculosis and water sanitation. Under President George W. Bush,…