Background
Creators: name: Maistrellis, Emily
name: Luffy, Samantha
name: Ivory, Alice
name: Bergen Cooper
name: Finkelstein, Mikal
Publisher: name: Open Science Framework
Year: 2023
Subjects: subject: Reproductive Health
subject: GGR
subject: Mexico City Policy
subject: Sexual Health
subject: Global Gag Rule
subject: Abortion

description: In 1984, President Reagan instated the Mexico City Policy, also widely known as the Global Gag Rule (GGR). Since the policy’s inception, it has been rescinded under every Democratic and reinstated under every Republican president. In May 2017, President Trump reinstated an expanded version of the rule and renamed it “Protecting Life in Global Health Assistance” (PLGHA). Under this policy, foreign non-governmental organizations (NGOs) who receive U.S. global health assistance are prohibited from providing abortion services as a method of family planning. The policy also prohibits referrals and counseling for abortion as well as engaging in advocacy to liberalize abortion laws. The policy was further expanded in March 2019 by U.S. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo to include foreign NGO sub-grantees that work on separate donor (that is, non-US global health funded) projects. In other words, NGOs that are prime recipients of U.S. global health assistance must now attach the GGR to all sub-grants that are issued to foreign NGOs, even those that do not receive U.S. global health funding. In response to the reinstatement and expansion of the GGR, CHANGE and Columbia University organized and now co-chair an international consortium of GGR researchers, known as “the GGR research working group.” The group is composed of researchers from a diverse array of institutions who are conducting different types of research to document the impact of the GGR on health service provision and access globally. Some members are also documenting the impacts of the GGR beyond the health sector, such as on civil society spaces and the environment for human rights work, global-level discussions about abortion, and the broader context of bilateral funding for sexual and reproductive health globally. The purpose of the group is to share questions and insights across our respective studies, provide technical support to each other’s work and coordinate countries and domains of research, and discuss strategies for leveraging research results. In 2018, the group developed a commentary (published in 2019) that presents a conceptual framework of the potential impact of the expanded GGR on funding flows, health services, and population health within and beyond sexual and reproductive health and rights. Now, as we near the end of President Trump’s first term, we propose conducting a synthesis of research on the current iteration of the GGR. Despite the efforts of the research consortium to share each other’s research products widely, it can be challenging for advocates in the US and across countries affected by the GGR to collect and read each GGR-related report and journal article. The proposed synthesis will amplify and consolidate existing research from the wide array of actors who have collected data on the Trump iteration of the GGR. Such a synthesis is particularly timely as we take stock of the (first) four years of the Trump Administration. Not only will it guide the direction of future harm mitigation measures and advocacy actions needed if the policy remains in place after the November 2020 election, it will also provide NGOs, donors, and national leaders with a roadmap for identifying and reversing negative impacts if the policy is overturned by a new administration.