Britain vs. Bush gag rule

ONE OF George Bush's first acts as president five years ago was to reinstate a global gag rule on family planning for health organizations in foreign countries that get US aid. Under the rule, the organizations had to pledge not to counsel women about abortions or to advocate for liberalized abortion laws in their countries. US law already prohibited them from providing abortions.

The effect has been that health centers in the developing world have had to forfeit US funds, limiting their ability to help couples plan their families using various methods, most of which help avoid abortions. Last week, the British government -- to its credit -- stepped in to help fill the gap.

The United Kingdom is making a two-year, $5.3 million contribution to a new Global Safe Abortion Program. An international development minister for Britain, Gareth Thomas, said an absence of sexual and reproductive health services leads to more unplanned pregnancies and more unsafe abortions. ''We work very closely with the Americans," Thomas said, ''but we have a very different view from them on abortion. Friends can disagree." The British and the International Planned Parenthood Federation, which developed the program, hope that other nations will add to the fund.

The need for more services is acute. According to the World Health Organization, about 19 million women and girls have unsafe abortions each year. Nearly 70,000 die from infection or bleeding. One of the UN's Millennium Development Goals is to reduce maternal mortality, and unsafe abortions cause 13 percent of the 500,000 maternal deaths each year. According to Thomas, limiting legal access to safe abortion does not reduce its incidence -- it simply makes abortion more dangerous.

The global gag rule was first made US policy by Ronald Reagan in 1984. President Clinton eased it when he took office in 1993 but Bush restored it in 2001. Today, health centers that provide either abortions or abortion counseling cannot take money from the United States for a wide range of services, from family planning to treatment of malaria and AIDS, or screening for cervical cancer or other conditions. The rule also keeps health workers in foreign countries from advocating for safer abortion techniques or equipment.

British Prime Minister Tony Blair has been pictured by British critics as a lapdog of Bush for supporting the Iraq war. Defying US policy on the global gag rule is a constructive way for him to rehabilitate himself on the home front and contribute to the health of women in some of the poorest countries on the globe.

<< Boston Globe -- 2/13/06 >>

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