Donald Trump’s global gag rule adds to stigma about abortion
Contrary to the stereotype of young women mistakenly falling pregnant, one SA practice has a clientele of professionals and married couples who choose to terminate
Médecins Sans Frontieres (MSF) has warned about the detrimental effect that US President Donald Trump’s "global gag rule" is having on organisations working in the area of reproductive health in Africa. The Mexico City Policy, known as the global gag rule, blocks US federal funding for nongovernmental organisations that do any work related to providing abortions or abortion counselling, or even advocating a woman’s right to have access to pregnancy termination services. MSF (Doctors Without Borders), which held a roundtable discussion on the issue in Pretoria on Tuesday, says the rule adds to the stigma surrounding abortion and has an indirect effect on research organisations working with pregnancy termination on the continent. Sexual health research and advocacy group Ibis Reproductive Health’s senior project manager, Tshego Bessenaar, said although the organisation did not receive US government funding and was not directly affected by the gag rule, its partners were. "We collabora...
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