On January 23 President Obama signed a measure that will lift the Bush administration’s block on funding to foreign assistance programs that provide education on abortion to woman, a move that could have a big impact on international poverty programs. According to a post on the White House website, this Reagan era policy referred to as the “Mexico City Policy,” restricted U.S. aid going to groups that, “engage in a wide range of activities, including providing advice, counseling, or information regarding abortion, or lobbying a foreign government to legalize or make abortion available.” In all, $400 million to various humanitarian organizations became unavailable eight years ago when the ban was initiated. According to BBC News, Marie Stopes International, a humanitarian aid organization that specializes in sexual health, had to shutdown several programs, including a program that was more focused on HIV and family planning than abortion. In one case, Marie Stopes was forced to cut their staff by more than 1,000 workers, after losing $2 million in aid when Bush enacted the policy. Now that the humanitarian organizations are receiving U.S. aid once again, they are able to upgrade their ability to provide woman with better counseling and advice regarding sexual issues, but the organizations say they are not able to make long term plans because in four or eight years the aid could be taken away again, leaving them underfunded.
BBC News report video
Filed under: Fighting Poverty, Health & Poverty, Perspectives on Poverty, United States | Tagged: Global Poverty, healthcare, HIV
