The US Senate has voted to over-turn a ban - the so-called global gag rule - that prohibited the provision of US family planning aid to foreign organisations that provide information, referrals or counselling about abortion. However, President Bush says he will veto the bill if it permits US funding for abortion.
In another move, the Senate also voted to authorise the president to waive the requirement that one-third of all HIV prevention funded by the President’s Emergency Plan for AIDS Relief (PEPFAR) be used for abstinence-only education.
A total of $34 billion of funding for HIV, tuberculosis and malaria prevention, treatment and care in resource-limited settings was approved by the Senate.
On his first day in office in 2001, President Bush revived a policy of previous Republican president, Ronald Reagan, which effectively prohibited US aid being used to fund organisation that supported a woman’s right to an abortion. But the recently elected Democrat controlled senate has voted to overturn the ban by 52 votes to 46.
“Women have had to bear the brunt of the Bush Administration’s ideologically-driven policies that undermine their right to make informed and healthy decisions about their sexual and reproductive health”, said Sarah Sippel of the Center for Health and Global Equality, adding “by repealing the global gag rule, the Senate has provided women with some relief; we must now redouble our efforts to ensure that the President does not veto this bill.”
Susanne Martinez of Planned Parenthood said “The global gag rule is anti-family planning, anti-democratic, and inhumane.”
Although PEPFAR has been instrumental in the wider provision of HIV treatment and care in resource-limited settings, there has been concern both in the US and internationally that a third of HIV prevention money provided by the programme had to abstinence-only prevention initiatives.
An evaluation of the PEPFAR programme by the US Institute of Medicine, commissioned by government, recommended earlier this year that the rigid allocations of money to different types of prevention and care activities should cease, and that allocation of funds should instead be made at country level.
Recent surveys by investigators at Oxford University failed to find any evidence that such programmes were effective at the prevention of HIV in both resource limited countries and the US. The authorisation to waive this requirement was described by the Center for Health and Global Equality as “a victory for women and girls.”
President Bush can veto bills that he disapproves of, with two-thirds majorities required in both houses of the US Congress need to over-turn presidential vetoes. As a result of the abortion amendment, President Bush has vowed to veto the Foreign Operations Bill, to which the amendments were added.
The Senate now faces negotiations with the House of Representatives over the final contents of the bill. The House did not vote to remove the gag rule.