Donald Trump reinstates abortion gag rule as women's rights advocates express dismay

Updated January 24, 2017 11:54:10

President Donald Trump shows off a signed executive order in the Oval Office.

Photo: Donald Trump signed the reinstatement directive at a ceremony in the White House. (AP: Evan Vucci)

United States President Donald Trump has reinstated a global gag rule that bans US-funded groups around the world from discussing abortion, a move that was widely expected but has nonetheless dismayed women's rights advocates.

Key points:

Gag rule first created under Reagan administration, lifted under Democrat presidents and reinstated under Republicans
Advocates note far-reaching gag rule affects groups getting funding funding from USAID
Rights group says policy puts women's health care groups in 'untenable position'

The rule, which affects American non-governmental organisations working abroad, is one that incoming presidents have used to signal their positions on abortion rights.

It was created under former president Ronald Reagan in 1984.

Mr Trump, an abortion opponent, signed the reinstatement directive at a ceremony in the White House on his fourth day in office.

Barack Obama had lifted the gag rule in 2009, when he took office.

"Women's health and rights are now one of the first casualties of the Trump administration," said Serra Sippel, president of the Centre for Health and Gender Equity in Washington.

"The global gag rule has been associated with an increase in unsafe abortions and we expect that Trump's global gag rule will cost women their lives."

An anti-Donald Trump demonstrator holds a sign at a protest reading: "Abortion is a woman's right to choose!"

Photo: Protesters have expressed concern women's rights, including abortion access, will be eroded under Mr Trump. (Reuters: Kamil Krzaczynski)

Reinstatement of the gag rule, formally the Mexico City policy, comes just two days after hundreds of thousands of people marched in cities across the United States and around the world in a show of unity for women's rights, among them abortion access.

Advocates note that the far-reaching gag rule affects groups getting funding from the US Agency for International Development, even if they use separate money for abortion services, counselling or referrals.

"It is appalling to dictate to civil society groups and health care providers how they can spend their own money and force them to withhold from women critical information about and access to the full range of reproductive health care," said Nancy Northup, president of the US-based Centre for Reproductive Rights.

Women's marchers in their own words

Men and women from around the world explain why they marched a day after US President Donald Trump's inauguration.

The policy puts groups that provide women's health care in an "untenable position," said Brian Dixon of Population Connection Action Fund.

They can either accept the restriction to keep their funding or they can reject the restriction and lose their funding, Mr Dixon said.

"Either choice hurts the women that rely on them," he said.

Following the rule's inception in 1984, former president Bill Clinton revoked it when he took office in 1993 and former president George W Bush reinstated it in 2001.