Biden revokes Trump's anti-abortion legacy

Ask Nelly Munyasia how she has coped these past four years and she sighs heavily. “It’s been overwhelming,” she explains on the phone early one morning, as she makes her way across the bustling streets of Nairobi, Kenya’s capital.

Ms Munyasia, the executive director of Reproductive Health Network Kenya (RHNK), which provides abortion care and other healthcare services to women, watched as the organization lost roughly $1 million funding in September 2017.

Earlier that year, former US President Donald Trump reinstated the Mexico City Policy, referred to by its critics as the ‘global gag rule’.

The policy blocks US funding for foreign organizations providing services, referrals or information for legal abortions - and those that campaign for the decriminalization of the procedure. Ms Munyasia was forced to let half of her staff go and end the majority of programs she once provided.

Previous restrictions generally applied to family planning funding only, which remained in place under Republican presidents since 1984, and were removed by both US Democratic presidents. The Trump administration further extended the policy to all global health funding, including for HIV and maternal and child health programs. 

Women's rights groups

On Thursday  January 25, US President Joe Biden's administration rescinded the rule, a move that has been applauded by civil society and women’s rights groups internationally.

Healthcare providers are concerned the process to reverse the policy won’t be smooth or speedy however, ensuring the long term effects of Trump's anti-abortion legacy.

RHNK in Kenya, remains open with funding from She Decides, a global women’s rights movement, but the number of women the organization was able to help dropped by half.

Globally, MSI Reproductive Choices, an international family planning group, says their refusal to sign the gag rule lost them $30 million a year in funding that would have helped prevent an estimated six million unintended pregnancies, 1.8 million unsafe abortions and 20,000 maternal deaths.

Conservative leaders

“Trump has done a lot of damage. It will take time. We don’t expect everything to be rectified in a week or month,” Munyasia says.

During the Trump administration, support for the policy came from religious groups and conservative leaders in Kenya, including the US Ambassador to Kenya, Kyle McCarter. It has also bolstered the Kenyan government’s own anti-abortion stance.

The African arm of Citizen Go in Kenya, a conservative campaign group founded in Spain and partially funded by US donations, has gained particular traction. In 2017, CitizenGo Africa launched a petition against Marie Stopes Kenya, which later resulted in a one-month ban against the reproductive rights organization providing any abortion services.

“It's easier to hear anti-abortion than pro-abortion messages right now in Kenya,” says Kenneth Juma, a researcher at the African Population and Health Research Centre (APHRC). What’s more, with the force of the US behind them, the Mexico City Policy has validated the Kenyan government's own anti-abortion actions, he says.

Pro-abortion

“In meetings with the Ministry of Health, conversations related to abortion were totally blacked out.”

The majority of Americans (70 per cent) favour overturning the restrictive policy, according to a recent survey of approximately 1,000 Americans by the Garin Hart Yang Research Group for the pro-abortion non-profit organization Planned Parenthood.

The Mexico City Policy has brought on a “chilling effect” both in Kenya and globally, reproductive health care advocates say. The unclear language of the policy, lack of communication from US government agencies and inconsistent implementation has led to confusion and fear among providers.

Organizations that complied with the rule, for example, often declined to participate in meetings where abortion was discussed, leading to divisions between healthcare partners.

“It increases stigma and reinforces incorrect perceptions,” says Ms Sarah Shaw, MSI Reproductive Choices’ Head of Advocacy.

“But it's really the effect that the gag rule has had on norms....and consequently, how that's impacted our relationships and our ability to collaborate and partner at country level.”

Reproductive Health Bill

Since 2017, Ms Shaw has also witnessed a pattern of emboldened anti-choice groups across Uganda, Nigeria, Malawi and Zambia.

“A lot of the opposition groups that I've seen in Anglophone Africa, you can track their funding back to anti-choice groups based in North America. It's a linguistic thing.”

When the gag rule is revoked and funding eventually rolls in, the noise made by the anti-abortion movement shouldn’t impact the availability of services for Kenyan women, hopes Mr Juma.

The challenge, he says, will be on a policy and legal level. In July last year, a Reproductive Health Bill seeking to guarantee reproductive rights in law reached the Senate where it drew sharp criticism from religious groups (many simply called it an Abortion Bill). Two weeks ago, CitizenGo in Kenya launched an online petition demanding the Senate make their report public.

Still, for the first time in years, Ms Munyasia is hopeful. The Biden administration also ordered funding restored to the United Nations Population Fund (UNFP) which provides sexual and reproductive health around the world, and which Trump cut in 2017.

Ms Munyasia, however, would like to see the rule permanently repealed.

“Then it doesn't matter who's in office,” she says. “Women and girls will never suffer [then] because of a US policy.”
 

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Louise Donovan is a correspondent with The Fuller Project, a global non-profit newsroom reporting on issues that affect women.