“As Trump once again signs the global gag rule – a US anti-abortion policy – we will not be silenced on the importance of reproductive choice,” writes Sanou Gning, Director for WISH at MSI Reproductive Choices.
Growing up in Senegal, I became acutely aware of the dangerous consequences of restricting women’s reproductive rights. Through hushed tones and conversations that ended abruptly as I entered the room, I learnt that although abortion care has always been needed, it is rarely spoken about openly.
For many in Senegal, to become pregnant outside of marriage is viewed as dishonourable, and abortion, unthinkable. Women aren’t granted choice, but they still find ways to end unintended pregnancies, even if that means putting their life on the line by consuming dangerous concoctions, visiting unqualified providers or inserting sharp objects.
Having worked at MSI for over a decade, I have met countless people whose lives have been transformed by high-quality sexual and reproductive healthcare. It is lifesaving. So, I will never tire of doing what we do. Watching people needlessly lose their lives because they were denied the right to abortion care has etched the power of reproductive choice into my soul forever.
The power of US policy
That’s why it is so distressing to know that the policies expected to be adopted by Trump will not only impact the reproductive rights of American women but will reverberate far beyond US borders and around the world.
When he re-enacted and expanded the global gag rule in 2017 it undid years of progress on global reproductive rights, causing untold pain to millions of women and girls. This policy, which was first introduced by Ronald Reagan in 1984, repealed by every Democratic administration and reinstated by every Republican one, blocks US Government funding for international organisations that deliver, provide information on, advocate for, or even refer people to abortion care.
MSI has never and will never sign the global gag rule and when it was reimposed in 2017, we lost $120 million of funding that could have supported an estimated 8 million women, enabling us to prevent 6 million unintended pregnancies, 1.8 million unsafe abortions and 20,000 maternal deaths.
At the time, I was the country director of our programme in Senegal where MSI was providing contraception and sexual health services. The gag rule meant we had to cut several of our teams that were providing this care to women in the hardest to reach areas of the country. The women we were serving needed us. And we were forced to turn our backs on them.
Partners who felt they had no choice but to sign reported that they dropped work addressing unsafe abortion and maternal mortality due to fears of losing funding.
And this time, Trump’s plans could be even more devastating. One in three women of reproductive age live in countries that will be affected by the global gag rule,[i] and if he adopts policies set out in Project 2025, the global gag rule would apply to around $51bn of funding. That’s over seven times more than during his last presidency.
The storm on the horizon
The situation today is even more perilous than in 2017. Following the overturning of Roe v Wade in the US, removing the constitutional right to abortion, an emboldened global anti-rights movement is causing untold harm to women and girls every day. In the last two years, many accessing abortion care around the world have faced greater harassment as they attend clinics, frontline healthcare workers defending the right to abortion are being publicly shamed and abused and there has been a surge of disinformation about abortion online.
Some countries around the world also base their legal protections for abortion access on Roe v Wade or cite it in their case law, which now opens them up to legal challenge domestically. In Kenya, anti-abortion groups highlighted the overturning of Roe v Wade as a reason to appeal a 2022 constitutional court decision clarifying existing abortion access.
With Trump in the White House, we are fighting even harder for reproductive rights around the world. We must maintain momentum so that everyone has access to the sexual and reproductive healthcare that they choose, wherever they are in the world. And that they can access this care with dignity and without fear of harassment or judgment. Having choice over your reproductive healthcare means having bodily autonomy, it means the power to determine your future and it builds a gender equal world.
At MSI, we choose choice. And we will never stop.
MSI Reproductive Choices is working across six continents to provide and advocate for abortion. Please help defend reproductive choice for women and girls around the world by donating to MSI today.
You can also sign up for the MSI newsletter to stay informed on reproductive rights worldwide and join us on our mission to make a difference.
[i] Calculated using UN population data from the UN Population Division Data Portal covering the 40 priority countries for USAID funding.
