Senate Votes To Lift Global Gag Rule!

[Guest guest]

Some Good News!

 

Dear ,

 

Just a few minutes ago, the Senate voted 52-46 to overturn the odious Global Gag

Rule that President Bush imposed in the first days of his first term. The debate

occurred with very little advance notice -- or we would have let you know ahead

of time.

 

The vote came on an amendment proposed by Sen. Barbara Boxer to S.600, a bill

authorizing a number of foreign policy programs. By adopting the Boxer

Amendment, the Senate acted to ensure that America's foreign policy reflects

America's values. And it stood up for the right of poor women around the world

to take control of their own lives and their own futures.

 

The Global Gag Rule denies U.S. family planning aid to foreign health care

providers that use their own, privately raised funds to provide legal abortions,

to provide counseling or referrals on legal abortion, or to publicly support

legal abortion within their own countries. It forces providers to choose between

receiving desperately needed funds or maintaining the ability to provide

patients with full and complete information and the right to speak out on an

important public health policy issue. Either choice hurts the women these

providers exist to help.

 

The effects of the Global Gag Rule have been dramatic. In countries throughout

the developing world, health care providers have been unable to agree to

sacrifice their rights and ignore their responsibilities to provide women with

information about all of their legal options. In Kenya, clinics have closed

leaving tens of thousands of poor people without the services they need. In

Ethiopia, contraceptive supplies in some clinics have run out, leaving thousands

of women at risk for an unwanted pregnancy and sexually transmitted disease.

Indeed, rather than preventing abortion, the Global Gag Rule only makes unsafe

abortion more likely because it cuts off funding for contraception.

 

We will have more information available on Wednesday morning, including how each

Senator voted, that we will send to you. But we wanted you to know now about

this important victory.

 

 

 

http://www.blueaction.org

" A politician is a man who will double cross that bridge when he comes to it. "

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