Skip to content
Center for Reproductive Rights
Center for Reproductive Rights

Primary Menu

  • About
    • Overview
    • Center Leadership & Staff
    • Pro Bono Program
    • Creative Council
    • Annual Reports
    • Contact Us
    • Careers
    • Diversity, Equity and Inclusion
  • Work
    • Overview
    • Litigation
    • Legal Policy and Advocacy
    • Resources & Research
    • Recent Case Highlights
    • Landmark Cases
    • World’s Abortion Laws Map
    • After Roe Fell: Abortion Laws by State
  • Issues
    • Overview
    • Abortion
    • Adolescent Sexual and Reproductive Health and Rights
    • Assisted Reproduction
    • Contraception
    • Humanitarian Settings
    • Maternal Health
    • COVID-19
  • Regions
    • Overview
    • Africa
    • Asia
    • Europe
    • Latin America and the Caribbean
    • United States
    • Global Advocacy
  • News
    • Latest News
    • Center in the Spotlight
    • Events
    • Press Releases
    • Press Room
    • Newsletters
  • Resources
    • Resources & Research
    • World Abortion Laws Map
    • After Roe Fell: Abortion Laws by State
  • Act
    • Overview
    • Give
    • Act
    • Learn
  • Donate
    • Make a Gift Now
    • Be a Champion
    • Join the Advocates Council
    • Become a Major Donor
    • Give Through Your Donor-Advised Fund
    • Make a Gift In Honor
    • Attend an Event
    • Leave a Legacy
    • More Ways to Give
  • Twitter
  • Facebook
  • Instagram
  • YouTube
  • LinkedIn
Donate
icon-hamburger icon-magnifying-glass Donate
icon-magnifying-glass-teal

Breaking the Silence: The Global Gag Rule’s Impact on Unsafe Abortion

Center for Reproductive Rights - Center for Reproductive Rights - search logo
search Close Close icon
Center for Reproductive Rights -
Menu Close Menu Close icon
Donate

Primary Menu

  • About
    • Overview
    • Center Leadership & Staff
    • Pro Bono Program
    • Creative Council
    • Annual Reports
    • Contact Us
    • Careers
    • Diversity, Equity and Inclusion
  • Work
    • Overview
    • Litigation
    • Legal Policy and Advocacy
    • Resources & Research
    • Recent Case Highlights
    • Landmark Cases
    • World’s Abortion Laws Map
    • After Roe Fell: Abortion Laws by State
  • Issues
    • Overview
    • Abortion
    • Adolescent Sexual and Reproductive Health and Rights
    • Assisted Reproduction
    • Contraception
    • Humanitarian Settings
    • Maternal Health
    • COVID-19
  • Regions
    • Overview
    • Africa
    • Asia
    • Europe
    • Latin America and the Caribbean
    • United States
    • Global Advocacy
  • News
    • Latest News
    • Center in the Spotlight
    • Events
    • Press Releases
    • Press Room
    • Newsletters
  • Resources
    • Resources & Research
    • World Abortion Laws Map
    • After Roe Fell: Abortion Laws by State
  • Act
    • Overview
    • Give
    • Act
    • Learn
  • Donate
    • Make a Gift Now
    • Be a Champion
    • Join the Advocates Council
    • Become a Major Donor
    • Give Through Your Donor-Advised Fund
    • Make a Gift In Honor
    • Attend an Event
    • Leave a Legacy
    • More Ways to Give
  • Twitter
  • Facebook
  • Instagram
  • YouTube
  • LinkedIn

Related Content

Issues:

Abortion, Censorship, Global Gag Rule

Regions:

Africa, Ethiopia, Kenya, Uganda, Latin America & Caribbean, Peru

Work:

Engaging Policymakers, In Washington D.C., Reporting on Rights

Type:

Publications, Books & Reports

Follow the Center

Donate Now

Join Now

06.01.2003

Engaging Policymakers Abortion Africa Publications

Breaking the Silence: The Global Gag Rule’s Impact on Unsafe Abortion

Justin Goldberg

Share this Story

  • facebook
  • Twitter
  • linkedin
  • Email id

Executive Summary

Every year, twenty million—mostly poor—women around the world are driven to unsafe abortion. More than 95% of these abortions occur in low-income countries. And every year, complications from these procedures claim the lives of some 70,000 women. Untold millions more suffer serious injuries and permanent disabilities.

Set against this international health crisis is the global gag rule, a U.S. government policy that prevents foreign non-governmental organizations (NGOs) that receive family planning assistance from the U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID) from advocating for or providing abortion-related services, even with their own, non-U.S. government resources.

Breaking the Silence: The Global Gag Rule’s Impact on Unsafe Abortion, a report by the Center for Reproductive Rights, gives a voice to advocates in countries where the gag rule has impeded their efforts to slow down spiraling rates of unsafe abortion. Center researchers conducted more than 100 in-depth interviews in four countries—Ethiopia, Kenya, Peru, and Uganda—with a broad cross-section of actors including NGOs that have accepted USAID funding and are therefore “gagged” from advocating for abortion. As far as we know, this research is the most comprehensive survey of the rule’s impact on gagged organizations and exemplifies what is happening in many of the nearly sixty countries receiving USAID funds.

Each of the four countries selected for this study depends heavily on U.S. family planning assistance and enforces restrictive abortion laws that prolong the cycle of unsafe and illegal abortion:

  • In Ethiopia unsafe abortion is the second leading cause of death for women of reproductive age, accounting for 55% of maternal mortality and causing one-fifth of all hospital admissions.
  • One report estimates that more than 40% of Kenya’s maternal mortality rate is due to unsafe abortion, causing more than 5,000 deaths each year. More than half all admissions to gynecological wards across the country result from abortion-related complications
  • Approximately 350,000 clandestine abortions are performed annually in Peru, resulting in the hospitalization of one in seven women who have had abortions and one of the highest maternal mortality rates in Latin America.
  • In Uganda, 5,000 women and girls are known to be admitted into hospitals for incomplete abortions every year, and unsafe abortions cause approximately one-third of maternal deaths.

Breaking the Silence identifies eight harms that the gag rule inflicts on local advocates struggling to respond to the daily tragedy of unsafe abortion. The report also exposes the U.S. government’s complicity in perpetuating this largely preventable health crisis.

The Global Gag Generates a Climate of Censorship
Many of the people interviewed for Breaking the Silence said that the gag rule has created a climate of fear, censorship and distrust that forces them to avoid any conversations about unsafe abortion:

We used to hold debates, invited medical doctors, produced research publications. We cannot speak as freely now. No one knows at what point it becomes prohibited speech. USAID told us that we couldn’t lobby for abortion liberalization or decriminalization. That, for example, if we attend a general conference and the issue of abortion comes up we can speak. But we don’t know how much we can talk about it before it crosses over to not being permitted anymore. We, for example, can do research on unsafe abortion. But if we draw conclusions, someone can say “that’s lobbying.” NGO, Peru

The Global Gag Skews the Abortion Debate with Bias and Misinformation
Respondents expressed concern, and at times outrage, that the U.S. government was forbidding abortion reform advocates from speaking out while placing no such restrictions on anti-abortion activists.

The Global Gag Impedes Abortion Law Reform
Historical evidence from the United States and other countries shows that when abortion services are safe, legal and accessible, abortion-related deaths and injuries are greatly reduced. However, the global gag rule has thwarted the efforts of abortion reform advocates to change restrictive laws.

Abortion complications are the easiest to prevent. But we cannot work to prevent them with the global gag rule. Now how can we work to avoid unsafe abortion? It is the issue that contributes to the most mortality. NGO, Kenya

The Global Gag Curtails the Participation of Civil Society in Democracy
Strengthening democracy and empowering civil society organizations is one of USAID’s strategic objectives and a U.S. foreign policy goal. Yet the gag rule forbids NGOs from participating in their own country’s democracy and encourages governments to act in an authoritarian manner.

The Global Gag Condemns Women to Unsafe Abortion
By handicapping advocates for abortion reform, the global gag rule has condemned countless women to unsafe and illegal abortions.

I met with a headmaster of a school where three girls have died from unsafe abortion. When do providers in rural areas say no to girls in need? The clinic is supported with USAID funds—do they turn the girls away because it is related to abortion? What should the school do? Refer the girls to the clinic? How were these kids counseled? The girls were all pregnant by the same man. It is very difficult for the nurse in the situation. What can she counsel about? What about rape and incest? It is a problem if the provider is a member of that community—how can she differentiate about what to say?. . . I could not stand up and take the story to the government. I can’t speak. A person cannot even speak as a community member or a parent. Because how can you differentiate between an individual or NGO employee? Cooperating Agency, Uganda

The Global Gag Reduces Access to Other Reproductive Health Services
The gag rule has shut down programs that provide family planning, HIV/AIDS, emergency contraception (EC), and other reproductive health-care services that it is not supposed to affect.

Officially the policy hasn’t affected any programs except for EC. An organization had made a proposal to pilot EC. The Ministry of Health had no objection and we thought there would be no problem. In 2000 they were going to do a promotion and service delivery of EC. Then there was a strong letter from the Cardinal that said the ministry was promoting abortion. The Cardinal later found that it was a USAID-funded project. USAID then did not want to be associated with the project. Government Official, Uganda

The Global Gag Isolates NGOs and Dictates Their Policies
Although USAID has emphasized the importance of supporting local NGO networks, the global gag rule has hampered the coalition-building efforts of NGOs that require broad-based support for sensitive issues such as women’s health and rights.

The Global Gag Infringes Upon National Sovereignty
Government officials feel constrained by the gag rule even though it does not directly apply to them. Many fear that upsetting USAID will result in a loss of funds for the government itself, especially the ministry of health.

When the president of the U.S. comes out with this kind of rule, it will have an impact on other nations. By virtue of him being the president of the U.S., people take note of his opposition to all abortion issues. NGO, Ethiopia

For the sake of women’s health and lives, women’s rights, freedom of speech and the development of democracy, the Center for Reproductive Rights urges the U.S. government to repeal the global gag rule.

  • Download Attachment

Related Posts

Decision: L.C. v. Peru

In a groundbreaking decision issued in L.C. v. Peru—a case brought by the Center for Reproductive Rights and its partner organization...

Abortion, Legal Restrictions,Latin America & Caribbean, Peru, Accountability Bodies, United Nations,In the Courts, Engaging Policymakers, Around the World, Reporting on Rights

Letter to the President of the El Salvador Assembly

 

Abortion, Legal Restrictions,Latin America & Caribbean, El Salvador,Engaging Policymakers

Carta a Presidente Sánchez Cerén ESP

Abortion, Legal Restrictions,Latin America & Caribbean, El Salvador,Engaging Policymakers

Sign up for email updates.

The most up-to-date news on reproductive rights, delivered straight to you.

Footer Menu

  • Careers
  • Privacy Policy
  • Contact Us

Center for Reproductive Rights
© (1992-2022)

Use of this site signifies agreement with our disclaimer and privacy policy.

Center for Reproductive Rights
This site uses necessary, analytics and social media cookies to improve your experience and deliver targeted advertising. Click "Options" or click here to learn more and customize your cookie settings, otherwise please click "Accept" to proceed.
OPTIONSACCEPT
Manage consent

Privacy Overview

This website uses cookies to improve your experience while you navigate through the website. Out of these, the cookies that are categorized as necessary are stored on your browser as they are essential for the working of basic functionalities of the website. We also use third-party cookies that help us analyze and understand how you use this website. These cookies will be stored in your browser only with your consent. You also have the option to opt-out of these cookies. But opting out of some of these cookies may affect your browsing experience.
Necessary
Always Enabled
Necessary cookies are absolutely essential for the website to function properly. This category only includes cookies that ensures basic functionalities and security features of the website. These cookies do not store any personal information.
Functional
Functional cookies help to perform certain functionalities like sharing the content of the website on social media platforms, collect feedbacks, and other third-party features.
Performance
Performance cookies are used to understand and analyze the key performance indexes of the website which helps in delivering a better user experience for the visitors.
Analytics
Analytical cookies are used to understand how visitors interact with the website. These cookies help provide information on metrics the number of visitors, bounce rate, traffic source, etc.
CookieDurationDescription
_ga2 yearsThis cookie is installed by Google Analytics. The cookie is used to calculate visitor, session, campaign data and keep track of site usage for the site's analytics report. The cookies store information anonymously and assign a randomly generated number to identify unique visitors.
_gat_UA-6619340-11 minuteNo description
_gid1 dayThis cookie is installed by Google Analytics. The cookie is used to store information of how visitors use a website and helps in creating an analytics report of how the wbsite is doing. The data collected including the number visitors, the source where they have come from, and the pages viisted in an anonymous form.
_parsely_session30 minutesThis cookie is used to track the behavior of a user within the current session.
HotJar: _hjAbsoluteSessionInProgress30 minutesNo description
HotJar: _hjFirstSeen30 minutesNo description
HotJar: _hjid1 yearThis cookie is set by Hotjar. This cookie is set when the customer first lands on a page with the Hotjar script. It is used to persist the random user ID, unique to that site on the browser. This ensures that behavior in subsequent visits to the same site will be attributed to the same user ID.
HotJar: _hjIncludedInPageviewSample2 minutesNo description
HotJar: _hjIncludedInSessionSample2 minutesNo description
HotJar: _hjTLDTestsessionNo description
SSCVER1 year 24 daysThe domain of this cookie is owned by Nielsen. The cookie is used for online advertising by creating user profile based on their preferences.
Advertisement
Advertisement cookies are used to provide visitors with relevant ads and marketing campaigns. These cookies track visitors across websites and collect information to provide customized ads.
CookieDurationDescription
_fbp3 monthsThis cookie is set by Facebook to deliver advertisement when they are on Facebook or a digital platform powered by Facebook advertising after visiting this website.
fr3 monthsThe cookie is set by Facebook to show relevant advertisments to the users and measure and improve the advertisements. The cookie also tracks the behavior of the user across the web on sites that have Facebook pixel or Facebook social plugin.
IDE1 year 24 daysUsed by Google DoubleClick and stores information about how the user uses the website and any other advertisement before visiting the website. This is used to present users with ads that are relevant to them according to the user profile.
IMRID1 year 24 daysThe domain of this cookie is owned by Nielsen. The cookie is used for storing the start and end of the user session for nielsen statistics. It helps in consumer profiling for online advertising.
personalization_id2 yearsThis cookie is set by twitter.com. It is used integrate the sharing features of this social media. It also stores information about how the user uses the website for tracking and targeting.
TDID1 yearThe cookie is set by CloudFare service to store a unique ID to identify a returning users device which then is used for targeted advertising.
test_cookie15 minutesThis cookie is set by doubleclick.net. The purpose of the cookie is to determine if the user's browser supports cookies.
Others
Other uncategorized cookies are those that are being analyzed and have not been classified into a category as yet.
CookieDurationDescription
adEdition1 dayNo description
akaas_MSNBC10 daysNo description
cookielawinfo-checkbox-functional1 yearThe cookie is set by GDPR cookie consent to record the user consent for the cookies in the category "Functional".
cookielawinfo-checkbox-others1 yearNo description
geoEdition1 dayNo description
next-i18next1 yearNo description
SAVE & ACCEPT
Powered by CookieYes Logo
Scroll Up