Publications

On October 17-18 in Geneva, the United States government faced questions from civil society and the Human Rights Committee on the country’s compliance with the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights (ICCPR). In addition to questions on immigrants’ rights, racial discrimination, and more, US officials were pressed repeatedly on the state of abortion access in the wake of the US Supreme Court’s ruling in Dobbs v. Jackson Women's Health Organization.

As organizations dedicated to protecting and expanding global reproductive health, rights, and justice, including abortion access, we are heartened to hear that you maintain an unwavering commitment to sexual and reproductive health care. The recent Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization Supreme Court decision is a public health emergency that has and will continue to threaten the health and lives of people seeking essential health care services, not just for those in the U.S. but also for people globally. We are glad to see those in USAID and the State Department recognizing and calling out the devastation that this decision will bring worldwide and reaffirming your commitment to protect and care for those you serve.

Abortion Restrictions violate the right to health of women of color and perpetuate racial discrimination

Dear President Biden, We, the undersigned organizations, call on you to protect reproductive freedom and bodily autonomy for people across the globe by demonstrating your support for the repeal of the Helms Amendment. Failure to do so is in direct conflict with the priorities stated by this administration to “promote access to sexual and reproductive health and rights both at home and abroad.” We urge you to proactively protect essential human rights, including abortion, for people in other countries as well as our own. We appreciate the actions you have taken in support of sexual and reproductive health and rights, including repealing the Global Gag Rule and calling for increased UNFPA funding. However, simply reversing harm inflicted by the previous administration is not enough to make meaningful progress on health and human rights. We write to you on this day specifically because it is the 48th anniversary of the passage of the Helms Amendment, which prohibits U.S. foreign aid from being used for “the performance of abortion as a method of family planning.” This provision is over-implemented as a total ban on abortion under any circumstance, denying millions of mostly Black and brown people in low-to-middle income countries the health care they want and need. Authored by the late Sen. Jesse Helms, this policy has roots in racism and neocolonialism, allowing the U.S. to police other countries through the power of foreign assistance and control their policies even in instances where countries have expanded abortion access. The result is drastic global health inequities, stifled bodily autonomy, and preventable death. Last year, many of us called on your administration to support the “Abortion is Health Care Everywhere Act,” which repeals the Helms Amendment. The Abortion is Health Care Everywhere Act now has over 170 cosponsors and is endorsed by a diverse coalition of over 175 organizations. The Helms Amendment was also successfully removed from the House-passed Fiscal Year 2022 State, Foreign Operations, and Related Programs appropriations bill. Despite growing momentum for repeal of the Helms Amendment, it remained in the FY22 President’s Budget and was not addressed in the recently released National Strategy on Gender Equity and Equality, both missed opportunities to ensure bodily autonomy for people globally, no matter who they are or where they live. Read the Full Letter

Dear President Biden, We, the undersigned organizations, welcome your administration’s reengagement of the United States (US) with the UN Human Rights Council (HRC) and recommitment to promoting human rights. We also applaud you for revoking the Global Gag Rule (also known as the Mexico City Policy) within your first ten days in office, and now we ask you to go further to implement “the policy of the US to support women’s and girls’ sexual and reproductive health and rights in the US, as well as globally.” Therefore, in light of your administration’s response to the recommendations made to the US during the Universal Periodic Review (UPR) before the HRC in Geneva last November, we are writing to urge you to take further steps to implement the UPR recommendations made with regard to sexual and reproductive health and rights, including by taking executive and administrative action to ameliorate the harmful impact of US abortion restrictions on foreign aid, particularly the Helms Amendment, a nearly 50-year-old policy that must be congressionally repealed in its entirety. Recognizing the racist and neo-colonial roots of the Helms Amendment, we also urge the implementation of the recommendations made regarding racism and discrimination. These recommendations were made by 23 countries spanning across Asia, Africa, Latin America, Europe, and the Middle East and, if implemented, would positively impact access to sexual and reproductive health and rights, as well as the livelihood and wellbeing of persons experiencing discrimination. During the UPR, the US was called on to strengthen its support for sexual and reproductive health and rights at home and abroad. A number of countries made formal recommendations for the US to take action on its restrictions on foreign assistance, and we commend your support of these recommendations. The Netherlands called on the US to “repeal the Helms Amendment…and, in the interim, allow United States foreign assistance to be used, at a minimum, for safe abortion in cases of rape, incest, and life endangerment.” During the UPR adoption, the United Kingdom specifically addressed its “hope that the US can go further and clarify its interpretation of the Helms Amendment, and ensure universal access to safe abortion care.” Congress must repeal the Helms Amendment entirely and the Administration must do all that it can to mitigate the harms of this egregious policy in the interim. In order to implement these recommendations, we encourage you to take steps to: Take executive action and issue guidance from relevant agencies and departments to clarify and implement US foreign assistance support for abortion care to the maximum extent allowed under the Helms Amendment, namely by immediately clarifying that funds can be used to support abortion care provided in cases of rape, incest, or life endangerment of the pregnant person. Issue guidance from relevant agencies and departments to proactively clarify that US foreign assistance may be used for abortion information and counseling under the Leahy Amendment. Prioritize the removal of abortion funding restrictions like the Helms Amendment, in addition to addressing many other important sexual and reproductive health and rights (SRHR) priorities, through the White House Gender Policy Council, with its focus on promoting SRHR domestically and globally, in order to bring US policy in line with its human rights obligations and the administration’s stated commitment to advancing global health and equity. All actions by the Gender Policy Council must also consider the role of racial and other forms of discrimination on recipients of sexual and reproductive healthcare in the US and elsewhere across the globe. Consult with relevant stakeholders and agencies to issue policies to combat systemic racism and discrimination against marginalized and minoritized populations and ensure implementation of these policies at the state, federal and local levels, recognizing that domestic US policy and practice influence the values exported through US foreign assistance and foreign policy. Ensure robust support for sexual and reproductive health and rights, including eliminating Helms and similar abortion coverage restrictions from the Fiscal Year 2022 budget. Download the Full Letter

Endorsing organizations respectfully request that the House Appropriations Subcommittee on State, Foreign Operations and Related Programs remove the harmful and redundant reiterations of the Helms Amendment in the FY 2021 appropriations bill.

Summary During the United States’ (“US”) second-cycle Universal Periodic Review (“UPR”), multiple states made recommendations concerning US abortion restrictions on foreign assistance, including the Helms Amendment. The US has failed to take any action on these recommendations; in fact, in 2017 the Trump administration further entrenched and expanded the scope of these policies with the reinstatement of the Global Gag Rule (or “GGR,” officially termed “Protecting Life in Global Health Assistance”). It should be noted that when the GGR is in effect its repeal tends to be the sole focus of advocates and policymakers; however, it is important to highlight that the long-standing pernicious statutory restrictions, including the Helms Amendment, enable the GGR, cause their own unique harms, as well as compound those of the GGR, and their repeal must also be the subject of attention. This submission highlights continuing concerns over these US policies which impose blanket prohibitions on abortion services and speech, in violation of US obligations under international humanitarian law, international human rights law, customary international law, and UN Security Council Resolutions. Download the Full Submission

2018 National Young Feminist Leadership Conference March 17, 2018 Washington, DC Text of Prepared Remarks “I think we all remember the image of Donald Trump, on his third day in office, surrounded by a group of white men, with Mike Pence looking anxiously over his shoulder, signing an executive order stripping women and girls around the world of their access to safe abortion services. And he didn’t just do it like Presidents before him—like Regan and George W. Bush—he did it bigly. And for once it wasn’t just posturing or an act to make up for his tiny “hands.” It really was huge. Where it previously only applied to US family planning funds, Trump expanded this censorship, the Global Gag Rule, to cover all US global health assistance—affecting up to $8.8 billion in funding, rather than $600 million. That was just day 3 and it was just the beginning. Well, actually it wasn’t. Our story actually begins in 1973 shortly after the Supreme Court’s decision in Roe v. Wade and with two men named Jesse Helms and Henry Hyde. In reaction to Roe, anti-choice actors in the United States consciously decided that if they couldn’t prevent a right to abortion, they would just make it a right that is impossible to access. Sort of the opposite of how we’ve treated the right to bear arms. A part of this plan was the enactment of statutory restrictions on funding for abortions both domestically—the Hyde amendment—and internationally—the Helms amendment. Together, these restrictions have acted for over 40 years to cause immeasurable harm to women and girls. The Hyde amendment prevents the use of US federal funds to pay for abortion services except in cases of rape, life, and incest. Like Hyde, the Helms amendment prevents the use of US federal funds—this time for foreign assistance—from being used to pay for, or “motivate,” abortion speech or services. The Helms amendment has continuously been in effect since 1973 and today applies to all foreign assistance, and unlike Hyde, without any exceptions for rape, incest or life endangerment. What does this mean? It means that in war zones in Nigeria and Iraq, where women and girls have been systematically raped by groups like ISIS and Boko Haram, women are denied abortion services, in violation of their rights under international human rights and humanitarian law. And that’s not all. Over the years, other restrictions have been added on to Helms to fully censor the provision of abortion with US foreign aid and at times directly and other times indirectly, with any aid. For example, the Siljander amendment prevents speech that lobbies “for or against abortion.” In short, any speech about abortion at all. These congressional restrictions that have continually been in effect are exacerbated by the Global Gag Rule when it’s in effect. While the Helms and Siljander amendments affect what can be done with US funds, the Global Gag Rule dictates what can be done with funds from any donor. First enacted by President Regan, the Gag Rule prevented the provision of abortion “as a method of family planning” or the “active promotion of abortion”—essentially covering every type of activity related to abortion service provision or speech—from information provided from a doctor to their patient, to research on unsafe abortion, to legal reform, to actual service provision, you name it, it’s probably prohibited by the Gag Rule. This has interfered with progressive reform of abortion laws, technical guidance around abortion and more all around the world, including in countries like Kenya and Malawi, where unsafe abortion is one of the main causes of maternal death. Reforming abortion laws isn’t just a moral or feminist prerogative—it’s a legal one. Human rights law is clear that restrictions on abortion violate a variety of human rights, including the right to life, the right to non-discrimination, the right to health, the right to information and the right to be free from torture, cruel, inhuman and degrading treatment. This is because human rights law recognizes what happens when women are denied access to or information about safe abortion services—they take unnecessary risks with their own lives to obtain one. Studies have long shown that the legal status of abortion has very little to do with overall abortion rates—however, the legality of abortion is tightly correlated with how safe abortion services are. Unsafe abortion is the only preventable cause of maternal mortality; yet despite this, 25 million unsafe abortions happen around the world annually. Simply put, abortion isn’t just a matter of choice, it’s often a matter of life or death. And conservative attitudes towards abortion, whether here at home or abroad, reflect a failure to understand that reproductive autonomy and choice are inextricably linked with women’s equality. Which brings us back to Trump…and Pence. The harm this administration has caused to women and girls in their 421 days in office, both here at home and around the world, has frankly been astounding. On the back of the reinstatement and expansion of the Gag Rule, this administration has also defunded the United Nations Populations Fund, the leading UN agency dedicated to sexual and reproductive health, gutted key offices related to the promotion of gender equality around the world, and even censored information about women’s reproductive health and rights in the State Department’s annual human rights reports. And that’s just internationally. Domestically, we continue to see severe roll-backs on abortion access. Emboldened by this administration (and perhaps its Supreme Court nominees), Mississippi just passed an (unconstitutional) 15-week ban on abortion this week. A study recently found that 58% of women of reproductive age currently live in a state that is considered hostile or extremely hostile to abortion rights. By contrast, only 30% of women live in states that are considered “supportive” of abortion rights. These attacks aren’t limited to the legislative level. At the Office of Refugee Resettlement, Scott Lloyd has used his power to deny young immigrant women in detention access to abortion, and in one case, considered attempting to “reverse” an abortion—a procedure not grounded in scientific evidence or medicine. Practices that may also likely amount to torture, cruel, inhuman and degrading treatment in violation of US abortions under international human rights law. The suppression of information and science is a reoccurring theme, whether it’s through provisions that compel speech from doctors like Dr. Parker here to provide women with false information about the dangers of abortion, or conversely, prevent doctors from providing information to women about their options or referral to safe services. Such mis- or dis-information is related to the same fear—that if women are able to access abortion freely and without significant barriers, they may discover that they can have safe, fulfilling sex lives and maintain control over their bodies, and their lives, at the same time. A terrifying thought indeed. So let’s go back to that photo. In the game of “Government Apprentice,” we seem to be playing, most if not all of those men in that photo will soon be gone. But we need to focus on how we are going to change that photo. We need to elect feminists who are unapologetically pro-choice. We need to elect people of color and young people. That way, the next time we see that photo the people look more like this panel and this room. And so that it’s about the signing of a piece of legislation that actually promotes women’s rights. Maybe even, dare I say it, provide public funding for abortion.

Executive Summary During the United States’ (“US”) second-cycle Universal Periodic Review (“UPR”), multiple recommendations were made with respect to US abortion restrictions on foreign assistance, including the Helms Amendment. The US has failed to take any action on these recommendations, and in fact, in 2017, the Trump Administration entrenched and expanded the scope of these policies further with the reinstatement of the Global Gag Rule (or “GGR”, officially termed “Protecting Life in Global Health Assistance”). This submission highlights continuing concerns over these US policies which impose blanket prohibitions on abortion services and speech, in violation of US obligations under international humanitarian law, international human rights law, customary international law, and UN Security Council Resolutions. Download PDF